It’s a decade since Skyrim was released, and it’s getting a planned remaster (of sorts) by the end of 2021 with the release of the Skyrim Anniversary Edition that’s set to include a host of new content, remastered art and effects, and Creation Club content. The Anniversary Edition plans to keep players occupied until Elder Scrolls 6 rolls around in a few years – and it’s going to be a long wait.
With that in mind, Skyrim’s diehard community can tide themselves over in the meantime with some very ambitious mods designed to overhaul the experience. Many of these mods have been in development for almost as long as Skyrim’s been out, and many of them are in the late stages of development.
These ambitious Skyrim mods raise the bar for what can be done with Skyrim’s now aged engine by delivering expansion-sized locations and storylines that Skyrim players should keep their eyes on.
Skyblivion
Skyblivion is one of the largest mods in development for Skyrim, and is built on the ambitious plan to rebuild the entirety of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Skyrim’s much newer engine.
The effort to do so goes well beyond recreating the game’s locales, and its developers are reimagining and redesigning much of the game’s cities and quests and even creating a new implementation of features unique to Oblivion, such as its magic creation system.
Check it out here.
Skywind
As the name suggests, Skywind is a recreation of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in Skyrim. Ridding itself of the shackles of the classic RPG, Skywind is set to deliver modern graphics, assets, sounds, and a full cast of voice actors while preserving the charm of the original.
Skywind is being designed to renew the island of Vvardenfell for the much newer game, with all of its alien terrain and distrustful occupants who populate the land.
Check it out here.
Beyond Skyrim
Beyond Skyrim is a collaborative series of different modding teams designed to create large continent expansions in the Elder Scrolls 5 to fill out the world of Tamriel. These expansions take players to a whole different continent beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil, Black Marsh, Morrowind, Iliac Bay, Roscrea, Elsweyr, and Atmora.
While Beyond Skyrim is slated to include all the different continents, a pre-release of Cyrodiil inviting players to the land of Bruma, the northernmost county in the region, is now available for both Skyrim and the Special Edition of the game.
Check it out here.
Apotheosis
Designed as an epic-scale mod, Apotheosis is quite unlike the other mods on this list in that it brings the player to the seldom-explored Daedric realms rather than simply recreating areas of Tamriel players may have already visited in past iterations of the Elder Scrolls.
Once it’s completed, players will be able to scour the 16 Wastes of Oblivion in an open-world environment, along with the home of the Forgotten Dead, in a landmass a 1/5th of the size of the Skyrim overworld. The setting is replete with Daedric bosses and never-before-encountered creatures with challenging gameplay that makes it look reminiscent of the Dark Souls games.
Check it out here.
