Best Mods For Skyrim Special Edition PC Archives

This guide is a brother of my Skyrim LE graphics and gameplay guides, in a single one - and a result of many months of modding Skyrim SE. My goal is a complete guide to save other people time that they can have a complete base list of mods for ultrarealistic graphics and challenging, nextgen gameplay, knowing how much these mods will affect on performance and in what order they should install the mods, which are compatible and which are not, etc. Skyrim have thousand of mods here at Nexus and there's very hard to check them all, but I spent some time and did this - from the 1st till the last page (I'm not joking hehe) of all the mods on Nexus and chosen almost everything you need to transform your game and also to have some variants of similar mods to choose from. List of 1400+ mods (but at the same time "quality about quantity", including different variants to choose from) to install to make your Skyrim graphics look nextgen and gameplay feel on absolutely next level. Installation order, performance notes, patches list and personal recommendations included.

This guide has both graphics and gameplay parts, two in one. For graphics mods installation, the [installation] order matters the most - so, for the best results, it's humbly recommended to follow the same order as mods are listed. For gameplay guide, installation order doesn't matter, but load order does, so read the mod pages/my own notes if preset carefully. Also you can check the videos at my YT channel to see how game can look when fully-modded. To make guide navigation easier, I placed guide sections into so called "spoilers" - when you see "Show" button - just click on it to expand corresponding group of mods. Click "Hide" again to close it :) Please also note that this guide is still designed for modern rigs - yet, guide also has section for low-end rigs, and many other advises here and there, as well as performance-hungry mods marked - so, you can built and ultimate setup for your own PC, no matter what it strength is.

But here come another exciting part! Guide also has so called "modules" - a premade mod lists (don't confuse with mod packs please) for different tastes and goals - which you only need to mimic, without worrying about incompatibiities and other issues. Modules will fit perfectly the people who don't have enough of free time to go through whole guide themselves.

Feel free to suggest any mod you want to see in this list or ask me any compatibility/stability questions I'm running Skyrim SE without any crashes and issues with about 1000 mods installed - and you can have even more and still have your game 100% stable. That's not some kind of exaggeration - everything you need is to follow the guide attentively :)

• Complete list of graphics and gameplay mods for ultimate nextgen game, 1400+ mods in total. Landscapes, clutter, flora, weather & lighting, armors, clothing & weapons, towns & villages, body, face & skin mods, combat, magic & perks, creatures & factions, quests, new lands & dungeons, survival & utility - and much, much more. Not a single texture will remain ugly after you finish this, and all possible gameplay mechanics will be improved, as well as tons of new ones can be added, hell yeah!
• Everything you need yet nothing excess. Not a huge mod list, filled with subjective choices, yet a roadmap showing you how to build your own dream setup. While, if you lack time - there are some mod lists prepared for you, in [addition] to guide itself.
• Detailed installation order.
• Comfortable and easy-to-navigate design.
• Patches list for compatibility and my personal remarks for the best result.
• Performance notes.
• List of all basic things/tools/tweaks you need to start modding and have stable game.
• ENB installation guide + tweaks/fixes advice.
• The biggest problem of heavy-modded games, script overload, didn't go anywhere in SE, unfortunately - game script engine, Papyrus, was not changed and having too many script-heavy mods may break even the most stable game. Worry not! Many script-heavy mods are marked with special mark in the guide, so you'll know in advance which mods you'll need to be careful with.
• Merging the mods easier then ever before! Mods that can be easily merged in a few click - marked with a special sign - so you don't need to spend own time checking for many factors. Currently, more than 200 mods are marked already, meaning that's literally more than 200 mods you can merge straight away, and I will expand this gradually.
• Separate section for low-end PC owners (which you can still use even if your PC is strong, to have FPS boost).
• Pre-made mod lists for different tastes and goals, which you only need to mimic and don't worry about incompatibilities and other issues - in addition to the whole guide itself.
• Constant updates and support :)

Version: 2.0 for Skyrim Special Edition, at 10 September 2020. Biggest update ever made as for today

- Added around 700 new mods in total - brand new & revolutionary, huge & tiny, dozens of hidden gems and so much more! Over 200 new graphics mods (also 8 ENB presets) and around 500 new gameplay mods

- Greatly improved guide navigation - now there are navigation buttons (semi-transparent until you hover on them, at the right side of the page) which can quickly get you to needed section instead of endless scrolling. This should save you plenty of time, I hope :)

- Outdated mods or those not needed as better alternatives were added, were removed

- Over 150 typos fixed (thanks to everyone who contributed, especially to you Daralima, I love and hate you :P)

- General sections improvement

- More merging marks (WIP, added many new for armor/weapon mods, will be adding more on weekly basis)

- Added new pre-made mod mod lists for various tastes & playstyles (modules)

Future updates:

- Atm - fixes of typos and broken links, if present

- More merging marks

- To report the issues with the guide (typos, broken links etc) - please drop a message in #suggestions_to_sinitar room in our Discord server.

Before before you'll start modding. Disable Steam overlay, Afterburner overlay, add Skyrim to your antivirus/firewall "white list". Disable all possible overlays, "boosters", "tuners" programs you may be using in general. All of them can and most likely will screw up your modded game and/or it's many settings. Follow the guide slowly withou a rush. If it's written here to limit your fps using enblocal fps limiter - do it, and don't use and third-party software for it, and so on. You got the idea. Also, it's heavily recommended to disable game autoupdates in Steam.

1) Download and install mod manager. Choose between Nexus Mod Manager (use the .exe file), Mod Organizer 2 or Kortex Mod Manager==NEW==. All 3 of them are great mod managers, each with something own to benefit player. I personally use NMM. What's the difference? NMM is "simple yet effective". MO is a mod manager packed with tons of cool features, mod manager on steroids if we can say so. Kortex is something in between, more similar to MO, but has own pros and cons over it (look here for comparison). Almost all mods can (and should) be installed via mod manager. Do not install mods manually. The guide contains notices regarding some exceptional cases when you'll need to install some mod/part of mod manually, but for the 99.9% of cases - always use mod manager. You may also find these NMM tutorial, MO2 tutorial and Kortex info page useful.

IMPORTANT NOTE #1:
Kortex mod manager was tested by myself for working properly - I liked it, just don't personally prefer it over MO2 or NMM. Also, it's not quite the most popuar mod manager, so it lacks usage tutorials, and you'll need to learn how to use/troubleshoot it yourself. Due to the same reason, I won't be able to provide Kortex troubleshooting support in Discord - but once gain, it's a great mod manager and you should be absolutely feel free to try it.
IMPORTANT NOTE #2: Nexus Mods team is currently developing new mod manager called Vortex. It's looking pretty fancy visually, but sadly, it's still very glitchy and pretty dysfunctional. I won't be able to provide any troubleshooting support if you're using it as it's not suitable for modding games like TES or FO. My advice atm is, if really want to, track it and test it by modding some other games with much simplier modding stages. Do not use Vortex to mod Skyrim. Once again, DO NOT USE VORTEX TO MOD SKYRIM. If it will be fine one day, I'll let you guys know.

2) Download and install SKSE. If you allready have it - great. If no - install it. It's obligatory. SKSE is [essential]. Stability mods are also working through it, as well as vastly majority of amazing gameplay mods. Consider it a basic invisible evolution element of Skyrim.
Download the SE version as marked here. Download the archive somewhere, unpack it. From the folder, get the .dll, .exe files and \Data folder, and place them to your Skyrim SE folder, as showed here. MO users should archive the \Data folder and install it as any other mod trough MO (you can do the same in NMM as well if you wanna). From now on, launch your game only via SKSE (skse64_loader.exe), not the game regular launcher.

3) Download and install SkyUI. As mod itself, SkyUI is basically a "PCfication" of ugly vanilla Skyrim interface. On practice, it's also required by most of well-known mods in addition to SKSE. Also install this fix for it, this and this improvement==NEW==.
Optionally (but very recommended as it's just looks so much more alive and beautiful) install animated icons mod for it. Also optionally, install this "wider" addon for MCM look. Also install iHUD.

4) Download and install LOOT. Get the .exe version and just run it.
LOOT is a must-have tool if you planning to have many mods. It's very easy to install and use.
Its most basic and important function is mod sorting. Many mods should be loaded in strict load order to work properly together. This mod should be loaded before that mod, but after that, and so on. LOOT makes miracles! You can automatically sort all your mods properly by just clicking button 2 times. Sometimes (it happens rare, so mostly you won't to think about it) some mods have direct instructions about how they should be loaded, in this case it's also easy to sort them manually using it. Also, LOOT shows you all you need to know about your mods instlalled - errors, missing records etc. In many cases, if something is not right - it will let you know and it will advise you. Actually, you'll not need to read and lean more than this to use it, but if something is unclear or you want to look at very in-depth guide, check this awesome Gopher's video. Use LOOT sorting each time after you've installed a few mods.

5) Install Address Library for SKSE Plugins. This mod is a partial solution to endless game update issues in SE (which breaks dll SKSE mods) - it allows for such mods to keep working properly not depending on the game version. Solution is partial because it doens't work automatically - each dll SKSE mod must be updated by its author to depend on this one, and as not all authors are aware about this or just active, this solution won't be universal - but it clearly will help you with many mods which are usually broken after every update.

6) Install SSE Engine Fixes.Note: mods has TWO parts - first main file, the "Part 1" you can install with mod manager. Second, "Part 2", you should download manually, unpack and place all 3 .dll files to your Skyrim root folder (where Skyrim exe is).

7) Install Bug Fixes SSE. Fixes some SE engine bugs.

8) Install SSEEdit. It's an awesome tool for cleaning your mods, making changes to mod records (like balancing various values up to your taste, deleting conflicting and/or unneeded objects and so on) and more.
Mods may contain "dirty" records and some other issues. And when you will have hundreds of mods, that could be a problem and potentially cause crashes. Clean all mods that have dirty records (until it's directly written by mod author to not do that for some reasons) and all Skyrim's DLCs (which have [hundreds] of dirty records. Yeah - Betheshda didn't even bother to do this for the game "remaster"). Don't be afraid of it, it's not so hard to use as it may look. Check this one awesome general video tutorials about it. Also there are a lot of info and videos at it's Nexus page.
Note #1: Make double sure to clean all base game master files (Update.esm and all 3 DLC .esm plugins) - otherwise you'll experience random crashes.
Note #2: MO2 users can try to download and use zEdit instead. zEdit is like a successor to xEdit - but please take into account though that it's still a WIP (work in progress) project. If you're a newbie modder - better just stick to xEdit (SSEEdit) now as it's absolutely fine. zEdit may provide better functionality than xEdit, but it's still not fully stable and there are not as much video tutorials for its usage as for xEdit. It doesn't mean it's bad - quite the opposite, but until it's officially and fully released, I won't be able to provide troubleshooting support for it - so use it at your own wish. Here's a basic documentary and description of it here.

9) Install Wrye Bash. Scroll down and download the .exe version and intall it. The link now is temporary, as it's the newest release that fixes some bugs - so track the WB page itself from time to time to see if the newer version is uploaded at the mod page.
Amazing and essential tool to achieve maximum possible compatibility between all your mods.
We will use it later in our journey, so just grab it for now. I'll explain it later in the guide :)
Note: if you'll be noticing you're clearly going above 255 active .esp plugins limit somewhere still in process of adding more and more mods - refer to step #1 in "actions to be made in the end" section at the deep bottom of the guide.

10) Download Merge Plugins. Yes, it's hosted in Skyrim LE sections and yes, it does work with SE absolutely fine :) You will need this if you'll make really heavy load order and reach the 255 plugins (.esp) limit. This amazing tool can technically allow you to have almost endless amounts of mods intalled, so you will be limited only by your PC specs and mods themselves (meaning no using broken/dangerous mods and not overloading your game with script-heavy mods). It easily merges plugins into one .esp file, drastically decreasing the total amount of plugins and allowing you to install more and more mods. For A to Z simple tutorial about using it, watch this amazing video and follow the steps.
Note #1: But what about .esl'fying the mods? It's a new cool feature, so maybe we don't need to merge mods at all anymore? There is a bit more about that - indeed, marking plugins as .esl is a new alternative way of not reaching the 255 plugins limit, but: 1) not all the same mods you can merge can be esl'fied, so sooner or later, you'll eventually need to merge mods anyway 2) esl plugins have some spesific bugs - you can avoid them, but this will mean spending additional time 3) Some other mods, especially mods with dynamic patchers (like ASIS) often simply don't recognize .esl plugins
Note #2: MO2 users, once again, can use zMerge which is inbuilt into zEdit, instead of Merge Plugins. You can also watch this tutorial video.
Note #3 if you'll be noticing you're clearly going above 255 active .esp plugins limit ever after making Bashed Patch somewhere still in process of adding more and more mods - refer to step #2 in "actions to be made in the end" section at the deep bottom of the guide.

11) Install Alternate Start - Live Another Life (+ optional addon), Skyrim Unbound Reborn, RASR - Random Alternate Start Reborn or Realm of Lorkhan - Freeform Alternate Start. Why you need this? These mods provide wide amount of alternative starts the game for those who do not wish to go through the lengthy intro sequence at Helgen. The thing is that vanilla start (scene in Helgen) is VERY heavy-scripted. And when you will install let's say, 200+mods and start a new game, your Skyrim will be very heavy overloaded. And there's very high chance that your came will crash (because the Papyrus, Skyrim's script engine, was [not] updated in SE and it's same clunky and limited), even if the game itself is absolutely stable. And now these mods save the day! You can just skip this heavy-scripted scene and start anywhere you like. Besides, it has a really wide amount of alternative start, great for roleplay.
Which one to use, what is the difference?? Long story short, ASLAL provides more "roleplay-wise" starts - you will appear in a certain cell, depending on your start option choice, and also has plenty of additional start options addons. Unbound will spawn you randomly, so less "immersive" start, but it allows you highly adjustable character customization (gear, spells etc) which ASLAL doesn't, and the most important - it allows you to play as NON-Dragonborn (but you can "become" it in MCM anytime), which is really a great option. RASR is somewhat like a mix of these two, a pretty underrated gem and Realm of Lorkhan is a really fresh and unique alternate start mod, which may look note quite "lore-friendly" to some players, but it's really well-designed and give you very interesting starting choices for your character class and even curses - negative attributes to balance class bonuses (if you want so, all these features are entirely optional - my only 2 cents abou it is that some class bonuses are still somewhat too strong even with curses, so you may want to adjust them in TES5Edit, which is very simple). I personally recommend to use Skyrim Unbound or Realm of Lorkhan, but it's totally up to you. Lastly, Realm of Lorkhan has on pretty immersion-breaking (for some players) thing - crystals you appear from after starting the game are not going anywhere and are just scattared across Skyrim. To remove them, use this patch==NEW==.

12) Get the Cathedral Assets Optimizer This step is optional. Easy-to-use tool to convert meshes from LE to SE (and backwards as well). Skyrim SE has less coverage in terms of remodels/retextures, and while you can mostly use textures from LE ins SE without issues, the meshes you need to convert. This tool will help you.

Before installing the ENB, make a few tweaks/installations for ENB to work and look 100% properly:

• Disable ingame DOF (depth of field) like it's shown here.
• In Skyrim SE launcher settings, disable Ambient Occlusion.
• In Skyrim SE launcher settings disable the improved snow options, or in SkyrimPrefs.ini, set bEnableImprovedSnow= value to 0.
• In SkyrimPrefs.ini, make sure bDrawLandShadows= and bTreesReceiveShadows= values are set to 1.
• In SkyrimPrefs.ini, make sure fGamma= value is set to 1.0000.
• Install particle patch for ENB. Download the archive, add it to your mod manager and install as any other mod.
• Install Smooth Sky Mesh.
• Now, install the ENB binaries (core files) themselves: go here and download the latest version. Unpack the archive and from \WrapperVersion folder, grab d3d11.dll, d3dcompiler_46e.dll and enblocal.ini, and place them to your Skyrim SE root folder (where game .exe is located). That's it!
• Choose and download the ENB preset you like and drop it's content to the same folder (where Skyrim .exe is). Usually, it's simply the \enbseries folder and enbseries.ini file. Basically, the process of siwtching between ENB presets is as simple as deleting your current \enbseries folder and enbseries.ini and placing a new ones into Skyrim root directory. That's it.
• Make sure to cap your fps at 59 in enblocal.ini (set EnableFPSLimit= to true and FPSLimit= to 59).
• Antialiasing: there are a few options. First one - use the edge AA from ENB (set EnableEdgeAA=true in enblocal.ini). Second one - don't use ENB AA and use TAA (set in game launcher settings). Third one - use ENB SMAA. Not every ENB preset provides it - usually you can choose it in ENB GUI (like in Rudy ENB, for example). Fourth one - DSR (dynamic super resolution). With DSR enabled, game is rendered in higher resolution than your monitor resolution is and then squeezed to your monitor resolution. The difference between those methods: Edge AA is the most simple and fps-friendly, but the also not perfectly smooth (yet still superior to awful ingame AA). TAA is looking very good, but often causes weird "ghosting" artifacts when moving. SMAA is the best in terms of fps price and quality. DSR is superior to any of them, but the most fps-hungry due to how it works. Try all of them and choose the one most suitable for you. If you have somewhat midrange rig, it's either Edge AA, SMAA or TAA. If you have pretty strong rig and video memory is not a problem for you at all, try DSR for sure.
• Not a tweak itself, bur rather a useful info that not everyone are aware about: DOF (depth of field, "blurred effect/focus") is usually different for each ENB preset - as certain author sees it better in own perspective. Some ENB presets may have "lightweight" gameplay DOF - so only very distant views are blurred. Some may have a very strong "screenarchery" DOF - when everything further then a few feets from your character is blurred. And so on. So often it may happen you find an ENB preset greatly fitting your taste, but with terrible (for your taste) DOF. You can, ofc just disable it in ENB GUI, but there's a better thing - you actually can use [any] DOF with [any] ENB preset! Even more, you can actually even use DOF files between different TES/FO games - for example, I'm using Rudy ENB LE DOF in New Vegas and Oblivion, and so on. So just find ENB preset which DOF you like the most and just take it's DOF files (enbdepthoffield.fx and enbdepthoffield.fx.ini) and drop them into your \enbseries folder. Profit!

Now, let's go! To the graphics mods!

Once again, here's a simple "rule" - as the guide's task is to save your time as much as possible, installing and overwriting is very simple - just follow the lists of mods, pick what you like, install and overwrite everything ("yes to all" for NMM and giving bigger priority in MO). Mods are listed in the order which, after endless tests and mixing approaches, will lead to the most balanced and beautiful look. In some separate cases where a selective overwriting will be needed, I'll notify you :)

Also, as Skyrim SE itself requires at least somewhat decent rig to run it without issues, the overall performance impact scatter of graphics mods is different from Skyrim LE, and if you can run Skyrim SE on max settings without issues, you will be able to run most of texture/mesh mods without issues as well, so there is no need for "green-yellow-red" marking system as for Skyrim LE. Still, some mods have pretty "different" level of quality or some other details that may impact performance greatly on weaker PCs, and such mods will be marked with a special ==FPS== mark. This does NOT mean such mods will destroy your performance if you don't have "NASA PC" - but it means you should install such mods carefully (basically, testing ingame performance after such mod installation) even on strong rigs, and avoid certain options or mods entirely on weak rigs.