20 Skyrim Special Edition mods to enhance gameplay
When it comes to mods for Skyrim Special Edition, there’s almost no limit to what can be done. The mod hub NexusMods has nearly 60,000 distinct Special Edition Skyrim mods that will do everything from give you supercharged weapons to change your hair in the game.
Among the best Skyrim Special Edition mods on NexusMods include SkyUI, a mod which overhauls many core UI (user-interface) functions and RaceMenu, a mod which reimagines the character creation process from the ground up. Both of these mods have nearly 200,000 endorsements each.
Skyrim modding culture has taken over other platforms as well. Bloc's AI mod for AI mod for Skyrim Special Edition that integrates generative AI NPCs into the game garnered nearly 700,000 views and over 5,000 comments on YouTube in the first four months after it was released.
Given how many mods for Skyrim Special edition exist, it can be hard to know if you’ve tried all the best rated mods out there. This master list of all the best Skyrim Special Edition mods will ensure you don’t miss out! And if you’re interested in trying out more generative AI-powered mods like Bloc's, check out our Early Access for AI Games program. 🎮
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - AI/ChatGPT mod
Bloc’s Skyrim Inworld AI Mod
Have you ever wanted to ask an NPC their thoughts about the latest battle in Whiterun? Then this is the best Skyrim Special Edition mod for you. Powered by Inworld AI, this generative AI mod allows you to speak voice-to-voice with all your favorite Skyrim NPCs. You’ll engage with the characters in Skyrim who can dynamically interact with you, experience emotions, have their own goals and motivations, remember your interactions, and develop relationships with you over time. Say the wrong thing? You might have a new enemy. Help out an NPC? They could become your best friend. You can even ask the guard how he got that arrow in the knee!
Link to repo: NexusMods
Herika: The ChatGPT Companion
This Skyrim Special Edition follower mod builds upon the current follower system within the game to provide a ChatGPT powered companion to take with you on your adventures. Recent updates have allowed Herika to keep a diary to give her long term memory and updates that allow her to monitor the player’s quest log.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Open cities mod
Open Cities Skyrim
This Skyrim Special Edition Open Cities mod aims to enhance the open world aspects of Skyrim. This is accomplished via eliminating loading screens between field areas and cities. Additionally, the mod helps city guards ‘do their job’ whenever the player character is running from combat towards guards. Guards will now intervene in the combat.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Follower mods
Amazing Follower Tweaks SE
Amazing Follower Tweaks is a Skyrim Special Edition follower mod which aims to improve the quality-of-life of the follower system. This is accomplished by allowing multiple followers, allowing followers to become werewolves and vampires, as well as through a variety of combat adjustments to followers.
Link to repo: NexusMods
Inigo
Where the Amazing Follower mod offers breadth to the follower system in Skyrim – Inigo is a Skyrim Special Edition follower mod which offers an extreme level of depth. Inigo offers thousands of lines of custom voiced dialogue. This dialogue differs based on both context and how the player's relationship with the character develops. The Inigo mod has a large fan following including social media fan pages and positive reviews from both IGN and Gamespot.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Hair mods
KS Hairdos SSE
Here we have one of the most popular Skyrim Special Edition hair mods. This mod provides the player character the ability to customize their hair with nearly 1,000 new hairstyles. Specifically, it offers 876 female hairstyles and 107 males hairstyles to select from.
Link to repo: NexusMods
Apachii Sky Hair SSE
Apachii Hair is one of the best Skyrim Special Edition hair mods, this time it affords the player the ability to modify their own hairstyle or the hairstyle of NPCs. The specific hairstyles are ones that will look familiar to anyone who has played Oblivion ,The Sims, or Witcher. This is because the mod creators have ported some of the most popular hairstyles from these games over to Skyrim Special Edition.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Multiple followers
Multiple Followers Framework
This mod is all about living your dreams of creating your own personal band of followers. Multiple Followers Frameworks is Skyrim Special Edition multiple follower mod and allows a player to have up to 512 active followers. These followers can be from the traditional follower pool but can also be converted from normal NPCs. A player may even temporarily turn an enemy into a follower. Perfect for that one bandit you were especially attached to!
Link to repo: NexusMods
Extensible Follower Framework
This Skyrim Special Edition follower mod is also quest mod that really showcases what we love about the Skyrim modding community. This takes a game that is already huge, and adds hundreds of hours of playtime to it by adding hundreds of new items and new quests. This is closer to an expansion than a mod. Some of the features include a museum for storage of relics you find in your adventures and a new player guild with the Explorers’ Society.
Link to repo: Nexus Mods
The Paarthurnax Dilemma
Sometimes no matter how good a piece of media is, the ending leaves you wanting more (*cough* Game of Thrones cough). In this quest mod for Skyrim Special Edition, you get the opportunity to see the ending for Skyrim you always wanted. It provides multiple options to choose from and a far more interesting final encounter.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Weapon mods
Immersive Weapons
Immersive weapons is a Skyrim Special Edition weapons mod that expertly balances adding exciting new weapons to the game while preserving the immersion that makes Skyrim a game that players return to again and again. Immersive weapons distributes 230 new weapons and 21 new weapon archetypes. But what would any weapons mod be without enemies to test them out on? Immersive Weapons also adds new enemies which will force the player to use some of the new combat affordances provided by the mod.
Link to repo: NexusMods
Skyrim SE Expanded Skyrim Weaponry
Here is a mod that adds 105 distinct new weapons for each of the main material types (iron, steel, etc) for the player to craft and use. This Skyrim Special Edition weapons mod has versions which also allow for NPCs to use these expanded weapons and to have them in shop inventory lists.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Alternate start mods
Alternate Start- Live Another Life SSE
Alternate Start is a Skyrim Special Edition alternate start mod which facilitates a number of alternate ways to begin a character's journey in the world of Skyrim. There are more than 20 options available for a player to choose from and some of them are very far off the beaten path of a traditional start. Like starting as a necromancer in a ‘secret location,’ or starting as an alchemist camping in the wilderness. If you’ve ever wanted to start your Skyrim adventures as a warlock’s thrall, then this is the mod for you.
Link to repo: NexusMods
Alternate Perspective - Alternate Start
Alternate Perspective is similar however this Skyrim Special Edition alternate start mod enables a player to create any opening to the game they could possibly imagine. Alternate Perspective additionally makes the starting area of the game completely explorable adding to the immersion of whatever your new characters backstory ends up being.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Magic mods
Arcanum - A New Age of Magic
Arcanum is the Skyrim Special Edition magic mod that you never knew you always wanted! This doesn’t just add new spells but is a redesign of Skyrim’s entire system of spell casting with hundreds of new spells and specific animations for those spells. The designers of Arcanum have split all magic into one of five schools each belonging to one of three sub-trees and all of which have had custom animations created for the mod. The creators also created new magical rituals to make sure you need to work hard before you become the most feared spellcaster in the isles.
Link to repo: NexusMods
Mysticism – A Magic Overhaul
Mysticism is another Skyrim Special Edition magic mod which aims to redesign Skyrim’s magic system. This mod changes it by fixing bugs, updating skill progression, and adding in spells from other Elder Scrolls titles. This Skyrim Special Edition magic mod attempts to keep all the spells in the game consistent, ensuring that all new magic added to the game aligns with Skyrim’s lore.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - Multiplayer mod
Skyrim Together Reborn
Skyrim Together is a Skyrim Special Edition multiplayer mod enabling a player to experience the world of Skyrim at the same time as their friends. This mod supports the ability of two to eight other other players to join you in your adventures through Skyrim. This is enabled by allowing players to host local servers where they can play with other players and form adventuring parties with them.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🏹 Best Special Edition Skyrim Mods - House mods
Elysium Estate SSE
Elysium Estate is a Skyrim Special Edition house mod which adds a mid-sized estate into the game world. To get the full experience with this mod, we recommend grabbing the complimentary mods My Home Is Your Home and Hearthfire which enable players to move in of followers, spouses, and children into this mod’s estate. The estate added in Elysium is breathtakingly gorgeous, filled with wildlife (yes, you can milk the cow) and flowers outside and an extreme level of detail on the inside of the home including the ability to cook meals for multiple individuals through a new recipe menu interface.
Link to repo: NexusMods
Leaf Rest
Leaf Rest is another Skyrim Special Edition house mod. This one is located in the existing town in Skyrim of Riverwood. Some of the features include an interactive garden system and a business ledger trading system. The inside of the home is completely customizable from room layouts all the ways down to the rugs in the rooms.
Link to repo: NexusMods
🖥️Play Bloc’s Skyrim AI mod
Now that you have mods for Skyrim Special Edition that will change your hairstyle and mods that will turn your followers into vampires, we recommend trying out Bloc’s Skyrim AI mod so you can ask other NPCs in the game what they think about your purple hair and entourage. Just imagine what Balgruuf will say.
Think talking to AI NPCs is cool? Sign up for our Early Access for AI Games program to get notified when cool AI games or mods come out.
Other AI mods to try out: