Best AI mods for Skyrim: Skyrim ChatGPT mod and more!

There’s a reason so many people still play Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim over a decade after its release: the Skyrim modding community is one of the best modding communities in gaming. Mods have tweaked, expanded, and added to various aspects of the game to keep it relevant and fun.

Skyrim AI mods, in particular, have the capacity to change the game by greatly improving game play. Now, generative AI is adding to those mods in exciting new ways, expanding the types of experiences players encounter in the game world.

One such mod is BlocTheWorker’s Inworld AI Skyrim mod that leveraged Inworld AI’s Character Engine technology that’s powered by over 30 machine learning models. It allows players to engage in real-time dialogue with NPCs within the game. Want to know how a certain guard got an arrow in the knee? You can now ask him! 🏹

To show our love for Skyrim’s phenomenal modding community, we wrote this piece showcasing the best AI mods for Skyrim and the talented modders behind them. And if you’re interested in trying out more generative AI-powered mods, check out our Early Access Program. 🎮

🎯 What makes a good AI mod?

Mixed reactions by gamers and the press to recent Skyrim AI mods mean that it’s important to define the things that make for exceptional Skyrim NPC AI mods – particularly for those powered by generative AI. 

• Real-time latency: No one wants to wait forever for an NPC response. The Mantella Skyrim ChatGPT mod released a video showcasing the mod which had to be sped up to hide significant response delays. The next wave of Skyrim AI mods will need to address issues with latency in order to improve the experience.
• Quality character voices: Skyrim Ai voice mods need to have natural speech patterns as opposed to robotic and lifeless intonations. 
• Emotive characters: An NPC is playing a part, just like an actor. They need to give a full performance and that includes emotions. Emotionless and flat line delivery is an aspect of Skyrim chat AI mods that mod users frequently note turns them off. 
• Ease of set-up: Current iterations of ChatGPT Skyrim mods require users to assemble the mod from a variety of APIs whose primary purpose was not AI integration into games. A quality mod should use a character engine to ensure a seamless and user-friendly set-up
• Conversational dialogue: Mods that don’t feature generative AI offer limited dialogue options for NPCs. Skyrim ChatGPT mods and those using Character Engines, on the other hand, open up nearly unlimited dialogue options.
• Ability to stay in character: “As an AI model, I can’t answer that.”🤖 If you’ve played a Skyrim ChatGPT mod and gotten that response, you likely felt the tech wasn’t ready for prime time. While ChatGPT Skyrim mods feature nearly unlimited dialogue options, those dialogue options aren’t always representative of the personality of each NPC and they often break the 4th wall. AI mods need the capacity to preserve the integrity of a character's background and ensure contextual awareness.

✨ Bloc’s Skyrim Inworld AI Mod - Skyrim NPC AI mod

• Overview: Bloc integrated Inworld’s Character Engine into Skyrim Special Edition in order to power NPCs with a character engine that allows for more dynamic interactions and endless dialogue options. Players can choose to speak voice-to-voice via microphone or type their dialogue through a chatbox. The mod preserves the characterizations while adding an additional layer of immersion for users who have always wanted to ask their favorite Skyrim NPCs who they hate most in the Old Kingdom or what they ate for dinner that night.
• Modder: Bloc
• AI Tech: Inworld AI
• Why we love it: It adds an additional layer of interactivity that allows modders to fully immerse themselves in the game world. When Bloc released the mod in May 2023, players immediately gravitated toward it. It was also deemed a stark contrast to Skyrim ChatGPT mods which received negative press due to the flatness and awkwardness of their AI integrations.
• Reception: “AI driven NPCs could make game worlds actually come to life. No more ‘ghost towns’ and 2-3 repeating lines for NPCs…A gaming experience can become unique for all players.” @AdmiralBison on YouTube
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods

✨ Dragonborn Voice Over - Skyrim AI voice mod

• Overview: Dragonborn Voice Over is a Skyrim AI voice mod which allows players to integrate voice packs for the Dragonborn player character in Skyrim Special Edition
• Modder: Mathiew May
• AI tech: ElevenLabs
• Why we love it: It allows the player to experience the world of Skyrim and talk to other characters via a voice that speaks the existing game dialogue options for the player character.
• Reception: “I think it’s an interesting mod that’s going to have a permanent place in my load order. It gives the Dragonborn a voice for dialogue like Fallout 4. But still maintaining the dialogue options of Skyrim. So, you know exactly what you’re going to say, unlike Fallout 4, which I know was a problem a lot of people had with the voiced protagonist in that game.” u/Aisanan on Reddit
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods 

✨ AI Overhaul SSE - Skyrim better AI mod

• Overview: This is the Skyrim better AI mod for Skyrim Special Edition. This mod makes NPC behavior more realistic and does so in a way that is consistent with the NPC’s background. This includes things like reacting to weather in the game world and more realistically interacting with their broader environment. It is designed to preserve compatibility with other widely used Skyrim mods. 
• Modder: mnikjom
• AI tech:  Modification of base game’s AI
• Why we love it: it’s a massive overhaul to NPC interactions that sees NPCs dynamically interact with their environments. It greatly increases the immersiveness and adds depth to the game world in areas that were lacking.
• Reception: “I just want to comment how great this mod is, how it has added so much more life to Skyrim and brought out characters from their houses that I've never even interacted with before. I love it!”  @Kalidi on NexusMods
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods 

✨ Enhanced Enemy AI SE - Skyrim enemy AI mod

• Overview: This Skyrim enemy AI mod for Skyrim Special Edition improves the combat intelligence of enemy NPCs. With this mod, enemies react to players' combat styles and animal enemies change their combat behavior based on species.
• Modder: Sluia 
• AI tech: Modification of base game’s AI
• Why we love it: It makes combat more difficult by making combat more realistic. If you approach combat aggressively then enemies respond defensively. If you approach combat defensively then the AI adjusts to be aggressive. This mod evolves with player skills, ensuring the mod user always has a challenging combat experience.
• Reception: “I really like this mod. I wanted a better and tougher enemy AI, but I don't want this one-shot kill Dark Souls nonsense, and this mod gives me exactly what I want: challenging gameplay and dangerous encounters without one-shot mechanics… Thanks for this great mod.” @Tkohr on NexusMods
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods

✨ Extensible Follower Framework - Skyrim AI follower mod 

• Overview: Extensible Follower Framework is a Skyrim follower AI mod which allows players to make a large number of customizations to the game’s followers function. This mod has versions for both Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition.
• Modder: expired6978 
• AI tech: Modification of base game’s AI
• Why we love it: This mod is a large quality of life improvement to the Skyrim follower AI functionality. It includes the ability to change follower combat styles and ensures the persistence of outfits you assign to followers.
• Reception: “Awesome mod. Fixed sooo many issues I had with followers, like them continuously drawing and sheathing weapons or being detected by enemies. Even for players who like to have only one follower, it improves the gameplay so much!” @DanteKingofSin on NexusMods
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods 

✨ Herika: The ChatGPT Companion - ChatGPT mod Skyrim

• Overview: Herika is a ChatGPT Skyrim mod for Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim VR in which a player can interact with a companion NPC through an in-game chatbox or a microphone.
• Modder: tylermaister 
• AI tech: OpenAI API
• Why we love it: It gives players a follower that’s powered by a ChatGPT integration to create a dynamic companion in the game world. The modder has created a diary to go along with her which helps in addressing issues where AI NPCs don’t recall previous interactions. It’s similar to Bloc’s Inworld mod except only one character is powered by AI and it doesn’t have a full set of character engine features like an emotion engine, 4th wall, and more to keep a character in-world.
• Reception: “I installed the mod a few days ago. To me, it’s like a new game. It’s just much more immersive having a ‘real’ companion and it’s very entertaining (with relevant, often witty dialog, with a lot of sarcasm). I guess it will be hard for me to be motivated to play games without (artificial) intelligent companions (and adversaries) in the future.” u/Dooooooddoo on Reddit
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods 

✨ Combat AI - AI mod Skyrim

• Overview: Combat AI is a Skyrim enemy AI mod for Skyrim Special Edition which significantly changes the way combat occurs by allowing hostile NPCs to think strategically about their combat actions. 
• Modder: fenix3415
• AI tech: Modification of Skyrim’s combat decision trees.
• Why we love it: It makes combat more difficult and unpredictable as the NPCs use logic. It makes combat more interesting, engaging, and challenging. 
• Reception: “A REAL AI MOD. Cheers.” @Magink666 on NexusMods
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods 

✨ Immersive Citizens - Skyrim chat AI mod

• Overview: Immersive Citizens is a comprehensive overhaul to NPC behavior in combat states and standard states, including the creation of a survival instinct feature to evaluate danger and risk.
• Modder: Arnaud d'Orchymont
• AI tech: Redesign of Skyrim’s base NPC AI behavior.
• Why we love it:  Allows players to experience NPCs whose behavior changes day after day. The behavior is customized based on each NPC’s background, promoting further immersion in the game world. 
• Reception: “I'd like to say, ‘should have been like that since the start,’ but at this point it's so good that I even can understand why they didn't make it like that. So much work and thought was put into this mod that honestly if I was from bethesda and saw this mod I'd instantly hire you to at least help on the general direction of AI design.” @Laezar1 on YouTube
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods

✨ Mantella Skyrim ChatGPT mod - ChatGPT Skyrim mod

• Overview: This mod is currently in-development. A ChatGPT Skyrim mod, it allows the player to interact with NPCs in Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim VR using text-to-speech and speech-to-text.
• Modder: Art from the Machine
• AI tech: ChatGPT
• Why we love it: It’s an immersive NPC AI experience that showcases how generative AI can be implemented in Skyrim chat AI mods. Like the Herika mod, it’s similar to Bloc’s mod except similarly it also doesn’t have a full set of character engine features like an emotion engine, 4th wall, and more to keep a character in-world. It also is said to have long response times.
• Reception: “I am blown away. I heard another YouTuber react to this and he predicted the response time will shorten over maybe a year and now less than 3 months later it's down by two thirds. We are on our way to something magical quicker than we know.” @tylerevans3168 on YouTube
• Link to repo: Not released yet

✨ Relationships Dialogue Overhaul: RDO SE - Skyrim AI mod

• Overview: A Skyrim chat AI mod created for Skyrim which is currently being updated to be compatible with Skyrim Special Edition. This mod adds 5,000 lines of dialogue using original NPC voices.
• Modder: cloudedtruth
• AI tech: Enhancing Skyrim’s relationship AI
• Why we love it: The new dialogue is used in a variety of situations including for interacting with friends, followers, spouses, and rivals. Makes relationships between the player character and NPCs more lifelike and attentive to changes in relationship status. However, unlike mods using generative AI, the dialogue options aren’t endless. 
• Reception: “This is an incredible mod. Thank you SOOOO much for the hard work you've put into this! Followers are a big part of the game for me, this is a dream come true.” @EvanButlerAlckatras on YouTube
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods 

✨ Immersive Patrols SE AE - AI mod Skyrim

• Overview: This Skyrim enemy AI mod creates new patrols for every major faction. These patrols lead to new encounters for the player character in Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Anniversary Edition.
• Modder: Scrabbulor
• AI tech: Modification of base game’s AI
• Why we love it: It creates exciting new moments when faction patrols cross paths with one another and, depending on their factions, spontaneously engage in mass combat with one another.
• Reception: “Just wanted to say that this is one of the only mods I consider ‘mandatory.’ I've come across some pretty wicked 10 (or so) Imperial vs 10 Stormcloak fights randomly. Assumed it was because of this mod.” @QuantumBios on NexusMods
• Link to repo: Nexus Mods 

🖥️ How to create an AI mod of your own

If you’re as excited as we are by innovation in AI modding and interested in developing your own AI mod, we recommend playing around in Inworld Studio. The popular modder, Bloc, has even created an Inworld modding guide to get you started.

We orchestrate multiple machine learning models to dynamically generate character dialogue and interactions. Inworld’s advanced SDKs and simple API with Python can be used to bring AI NPCs to life and then integrate them into mods and original games. With these SDKs, you can use the power of Inworld’s Character Engine to create lifelike characters with long-term memory, the ability to form relationships, and pursue their own goals and actions. Inworld’s Contextual Mesh can then be used to create a context for your NPCs that ensure the NPC’s actions and dialogue match the world they are being added to.

Design a character to test it out in our Studio for free!

Play more AI mods

Sign up for our Early Access for AI Games program to learn about AI mods and games first. Or play other AI mods that have integrated Inworld’s Character Engine:

• Bannerlord: Mount and Blade
• Stardew Valley
• GTA V