INTRODUCTION
We bring you something a bit different this time than a usual top 10 list of mods. Listed mods below will make your game look absolutely beautiful – the following 43 mods are a must. Most of them are for the Skyrim Special Edition but many also have the good old regular Skyrim iterations for you to install. Our recommendation is to use the Nexus Mod Manager whenever you can to keep the massive list well organized but keep in mind that some of the mods do need to be manually installed.
Be sure to check out our top Skyrim mods in other categories:
Environment & weather
The environment and the skybox are what you’ll spend most time staring at in any Skyrim playthrough and the following mods will make that a truly next-gen experience. Like stepping into an entirely different game in some cases. The following mods will try to focus on both improving the existing Skyrim graphics assets as well as adding a ton of new ones. They’ll usually have higher textures, more detail and sometimes even some story attached to them.
Skyrim Flora Overhaul
Realistic Aspen Trees
Simply Bigger Trees
HQ Tree Bark
Paradise City for Skyrim
Verdant – A Skyrim Grass Plugin
aMidianBorn Caves and Mines
Ruins Clutter Improved
Real Roads
Nordic Snow
Vivid Landscapes
Vivid Weathers
Realistic Water Two
ETHEREAL CLOUDS
Enhanced Lights and FX
Characters
You can’t deny that characters were always the weakest part of any Elder Scrolls game as they always look unnatural and stand out amidst the often beautiful scenery like a sore thumb. So bring them up to par with the following visual mods. They’ll cover everything, from higher resolution textures to more detailed hair as well as a more diverse cast of NPC characters.
ApachiiSkyHair
The Eyes Of Beauty
Total Character Makeover
Diversity – An NPC Overhaul
UNP Female Body Renewal
Mature skin texture and body
SkySight Skins
Textures
Skyrim is an old game and when you consider any of today’s games it looks extremely washed out by comparison. Luckily, with mods, you can take Skyrim textures all the way up to 4k resolution and surpass any and all modern games by far in terms of graphical detail and sharpness.
Enhanced textures detail
NobleSkyrimMod
HD LODs Textures
Gecko’s 4K Mountain Textures
Static Mesh Improvement
SSE Texture Pack
aMidianBorn Book of Silence – Armor & Weapons
Book Covers
4K Parallax Skyrim
Bonus
The following mods are somewhat accessory in the sense that they won’t make a dramatic impact some of the other mods in this article will. They will, however, contribute to the overall atmosphere and make the game a bit more modern.
Lanterns of Skyrim
A Quality World Map
SkyHUD
High Quality Food and Ingredients
Ultimate HD Fire Effects
JK’s Skyrim
Skyrim Radioactive
Footprints
The Useless Shop and Interior
ENB
ENB is the glue that binds all of the above together. After installing some or all of the above, it will apply a bunch of postprocessing to make the most dramatic effect on your game. Simply put, there is no next-gen Skyrim graphics without an ENB. There are plenty of these out there and you can play with different presets. We, however, recommend the following three to produce graphics closest to the ones in the screenshots. Two for a more natural look and one for a more saturated and bright look. Keep in mind that applying any one of these will dramatically impact your game’s performance. You can somewhat alleviate this by tweaking the ENB setting and scaling down on some of the effects while still retaining that next-gen look.
Skyrim SE Re-Engaged ENB
The True Beauty of Skyrim
Nyclix’s ENB
If you want an extensive, 250+ mod guide to make Skyrim look absolutely flawless and better than most modern games, you can check out also Skyrim S.E.P.T.I.M. collection of visuals mods.
Lucio
Hi,
Do these mods work with Skyrim VR?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/611670/The_Elder_Scrolls_V_Skyrim_VR/
Jesper Staun
It’s for special edition. Nvm
Deadstaar
Yeah it’s funny how they bother to tell you to download all of this, but then you’re stuck with graphical glitches. Then you have to spend hours playing with load orders…and if that doesnt fix it? Reinstalling mods, to overwrite other mods, until you figure it out…or negate both mods, in which case it’s usually fine because the game probably defaults to vanilla. I will figure this load order out and report back for everyone…since nobody else who knows can be bothered to share.
D0ddz
Please do
Hrvoje Smoljic
Hello, as mentioned in previous answers – there is no definitive load order for the mods in the list. It depends on which combination of mods you ultimately decide because not all of them are mutually compatible, especially the ENB’s, and some of the script heavy mods or large texture overhauls.
You still need to read up the descriptions of each individual mod and use LOOT to check for compatibility patch recommendations.
Matthew
I downloaded these and used LOOT to sort yet my game wont even start up, anyone know why?
Hrvoje Smoljic
Hi Matthew,
Some of these mods conflict with one another. If you are using a mod installer, you can give priority to certain mods as it should ask you if you want to overwrite files from a previous mod. However, this mostly works for pure texture mods, other mods that have a ton of scripts you can have only one.
So one ENB, one weather changing mod, etc – depending on your personal preference (also check LOOT for recommendations on compatibility patches where applicable).
Matthew
I managed to get it to work, but now it crashes when trying to exit Helgen :/
Person124
Would it be a good idea for me to install all of these and the enb or will it look like mushed dog poop with too many?
Bubonsam
Anyone have an idea of the load order for this list of mods ?
Hrvoje Smoljic
Hello,
As I stated for a previous question – it’s best to use LOOT to sort it all out for you. LOOT will even often inform you which mods require special compatibility patches in order to work properly.
Yo
Thanks my guy
MrGreenPope
What does the load order look like?
Vegard
Hi, thanks for the article. Any tips on the load order? Are the mods listed randomly or in the order they should be loaded?
Hrvoje Smoljic
Hello,
Mods listed in the article are listed randomly and as there is plenty of them, it’s best to use LOOT to sort it all out for you. LOOT will even often inform you which mods require special compatibility patches in order to work properly.
catbear
Hey! do all these ENBs work together, or must they be seperate?
Hrvoje Smoljic
Hi,
You can only install one ENB at a time. You decide which one suits the aesthetic you are going for the most. Re-Engaged and True Beauty for a more natural look or Nyclix for a more saturated, over the top look.
maksafi
Hi,
thanks for sharing, but i have a question… for the texture section, you’re using all of them or just a combination of some of them?
Hrvoje Smoljic
Hi,
I use a combination of some of them since making everything 4K really takes a big hit on the performance. With that being said, installing all of them is completely possible since texture mods don’t cause compatibility issues and simply ask you to overwrite existing ones upon installation.