Batch 34 is done… sort-of.
(because I’m STILL playing Skyrim!)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
too many hours, 9/10
54 of 75 achievements
I last played Skyrim back in 2014-15. It was time for a re-visit.
For this go-around I used one of the most complex manual modding guides created for the game: Lexy's Legacy of the Dragonborn: Special Edition. And then I added a whole bunch more stuff into it. The final product has 813 mods and patches. For all that effort, the game is incredibly stable and looks and plays a lot closer to more modern games.
Last time I completed the entire College of Winterhold questline but decided to put the game down about a third of the way through the Thieves Guild story.
For this run I decided to do the Companions questline with a sword-and-shield fighter. Virtually no magic except for health potions and the rare useful scroll. It's been a blast! More than half of the activities and places I've been were new to me. I finished the main quest line, too many smaller ones to count, and am currently making my way for the first time through Dragonborn DLC.
Speaking of which the mods included in this build add a ton of content, most of which will likely get spread through other play-throughs.
- Legacy of the Dragonborn - This mod adds a museum to Solitude with thousands of displays for your travels. It also has it's own plot working with the museum staff who chase down artifacts to add to the collection.
- Helgen Reborn - Rebuild the town that was destroyed by Alduin in the game's opening sequence.
- Falskaar - Introduces and entire new island full of quests that was the sole creation of a very talented modder.
- Plus: Wyrmstooth, Clockwork, The Forgotten City, The Tools of Kargenac, and more.
Check out some of my screeshots
You got to hand it to Bethesda -- they created an absolute marvel that continues to deliver in the hands of people who keep making mods and patches for it.
A cute little puzzle game that involves sliding blocks around an industrial 3D environment to move characters from one part of a room map to another. This is augmented by several other mechanics including buttons that trigger lifts, blocks that create ladders when placed along a wall, floor tiles you can only cross once, and a few other interesting challenges involving not getting caught by enemies.
All of this is set to the music and scenes from The Magic Flute as staged by Amon Miyamoto from his famous production of the opera in Tokyo. It's a nice bit of art direction on top of what is otherwise a bit of a bland game. Most levels are easy. And many of the more interesting mechanics are confines to a single group of scenes. The story only follows Act I and then the game is over.
A simple, short and somewhat fun distraction for a few hours. It's a port of a game originally developed for iOS and played on a phone.
I could really write a lot about this game, but most of it would be re-hashing well-deserved praise. I didn't know if I would really like it or not, but it won me over quickly. If you haven't tried it and you like survival games, this is a must-play. Also despite what some people have said I wouldn't call it particularly scary. The tension comes mostly from exploring the darkened waters well below the surface, but the game is extremely forgiving. Once you know your way around avoiding and outrunning the things that might try to bite you is pretty easy.
Since I started poking around with VR again I decided to try this one since I'd already played the game before. The product is not polished but there are some great moments in it, and the outdoor areas are quite beautiful!
You have taken some lovely screenshots!
And uhh you weren’t kidding about those hours in Skyrim haha
One day I’ll go finish the game. Maybe..
Since I got into making mods of my own and testing the inclusion of others that weren’t part of the guide, at least 270 hours of my “game time” was popping into the game to make sure things worked properly. My real game started around May 1 and I hit it pretty hard at least until I finished the main quest around level 52.
But dang, there’s still so much left to do!
Wow, over 100gb of mods? That’s impressive. It’s been almost a decade since I played Skyrim but I modded that game pretty heavily too.
What exactly does this mod pack changes, besides adding stuff you mentioned in review. I’m curious about gameplay changes. But one thing I don’t like looking at screenshots are the visuals, is this included in mod pack or did you added that?
The mods I absolutely loved and remember using were Deadly Dragons, Frostfall, Unofficial patches, SkyUI, Interesting NPCs, iHUD, SMIM, Enhanced Lights and FX. And some kind of mod that changed the way you play - you could level to over 100, talent trees were completely revamped and expanded to fit for +100 level gameplay, you and enemies were more squishy, I actually had to start using enhancments and potions just to survive xD
All the mods you mention are included. It uses most of the top mods across nearly every category on Nexus. Virtually every in-game system is replaced/upgraded.
Lots of SKSE plugins that fix things the Unofficial Patch can’t.
Ordinator for perk trees, Apocalypse for new spells.
Quest boards in all major towns for radiant quests.
Combat is much more deadly using Ultimate Combat, Wildcat, Archery Gameplay Overhaul and Skyrim Revamped.
Level uncapper so go as high as you want.
Frostfall + Campfire and Cathedral Weathers for the outdoor environment. iWant and Realistic Needs & Disease for more immersion.
Crafting, Alchemy and Cooking all overhauled.
Lots of better animation mods.
Many more people in the wilds courtesy of OMEGA and Organized Bandits in Skyrim.
Inigo, Lucien, Auri, Kaiden and M’rissi for standalone followers.
Tons of NPC overhauls woven together. I did my own blend as I thought the guide trended too heavily toward beautiful women everywhere.
There’s too many visual upgrades to mention – everything in the game is touched I think. But it’s easy to swap in stuff you like better if they are just texture packs. I’m also running Re-Engaged ENB so my screens might look dramatically different if you wanted to go with something else. The guide uses LJoss but ENB is always up to the user.
The game is seriously hard even and the lowest difficulty, especially to about the mid-30s or so. And yes you’ll need those potions! As a fighter I couldn’t afford to rush in blindly swinging. Blocking is critical and potions on hotkey are necessary if you take a hit or two. Three and you’re probably reloading from your last save.
That sounds fantastic! I bookmarked this mod site if one day I decide to give Skyrim another shot.
Thanks for answering :)
Sorry for another question, but I remember one of the mods added a new talent tree that was called something like “Wayfarer” or something, it was basically return of Agility and Acrobatics from previous games + some other skills focused on traveling. Is that included?
Of course it was fitted for +100 playthrough so it was quite big like others :)
I don’t believe so.
That reminds me – I still have to finish Skyrim as well. Impressive modding guide you’ve posted. Tbh that’s one of the things that scare me a bit; Skyrim has so many mods by now, I don’t even know where to start and which are essential. But some day I’ll take some time to do proper research and then I’ll enjoy this game in newfound glory! Gratz on finishing it!
There are some less ambitious but great modding guides out there that hit all the essentials. The Phoenix Flavor is a good one. Also the skyrimmodding reddit has a sticky list of the “required” stuff any modded game should have. And for the impatient there is Wabbajack which automates the installation of many popular mod lists out there if you don’t want to learn how to do it yourself.
So lots of options. I never thought I’d do Skyrim again but this round proved so much more rewarding than my first playthrough.
And during the Summer Sale I bought the VR version. It also has essential mods to make it a playable game. Might plunge into that before long as well!
Thanks for the pointers! I’ll make sure to check them out once I hop into Skyrim for another round.
Ha! Well, I wish you a fun additional playthrough when you jump into the VR version :)