[Top 15] Skyrim Mods for a New Experience

Updated:

31 Mar 2021

With a game as old as Skyrim, mods that create a new experience are a breath of fresh air.

Why do you mod Skyrim? There are no wrong answers and almost infinite choices. For some people, the goal is adding more challenges to a game that is nearing its 10th birthday this year. For others, modding is a way to constantly add unique features to the game that enhance the experience in some way or another. These mods will do just that by introducing new features or quality-of-life improvements to your game.

15. Faster Horse Dismount SSE

Horses: now a little less of an inconvenience to you!

Horses have so much potential in Skyrim. They can speed up travel time, especially early on when you don’t have fast travel access for the whole map. The problem with horses is they feel largely inconvenient. One of the reasons is how slow it is to jump off (or jump back on) your horse, especially in the frenzy of battle. If you didn’t guess it already, that’s where this mod comes in.

Features:

Multiple versions available to replace the 2.13 seconds it normally takes to dismount your horse: 25%, 33%, and 50% faster
Optional file to tweak the 1.67 seconds it takes to get back on your horse: 15%, 21%, and 30% faster
MCM is not required, as you just simply choose which versions you want on the mods’ download page

Get the mod here for SE.

14. LazyOutfits

An example of the in-game MCM menu that this mod uses.

If you’ve ever been indecisive about what your character should wear, this mod is going to be great for you. Every time you switch your outfit, it is an endless search through your inventory to re-equip each part of the set. Starting a new character is even more frustrating when you want gear that you have acquired many times before on other characters. This mod will solve these problems for you and is easy to use.

Features:

Use this mod to save your equipped gear to an outfit that you can apply to your character at any time
Use outfits saved from other characters in a new game to start the game at an advantage, or just apply a simple outfit you enjoy
Weapons apply to this as well, so you can start out new characters easily with the gear of your choice

Get the mod here for SE.

13. Surprise Small Critters

This mod is not recommended to anyone with a fear of spiders (reasoning shown here).

Skyrim has plenty of large creatures trying to kill you, but one thing it is surprisingly lacking in is small enemies. This mod adds groups of small enemies such as small spiders, tiny Chaurus, and more. If you’re looking to add small new enemies that will surprise you, try this mod out now!

Features:

Tiny not-so-cute creature varieties: spiderlings, albino spiderlings, Chaurus hatchlings, Chaurus hunter hatchlings
Customizable variables for the creatures including the chance of spawning, amount of critters in the groups, and more
Spider eggs and webbed corpses among others now have the chance to spawn a bunch of small critters when hit or looted

Get the mod here for SE.

12. Spell Tutor

The menus included with Spell Tutor allow you to decide how the mod works.

Spell Tutor is a great mod for changing up some of the gameplay aspects of mages. Even if you only use spells occasionally, these changes will still be worth using. Everything that this mod does makes it perfect for changing up your game for a new experience.

Features:

Changes to the way that you learn spells, your character will fail to learn a spell if they don’t meet the conditions for that spell
Unique features such as spell tomes being destroyed upon learning or failure, mental exhaustion lowering Magicka after reading a spell tome, and much more
Every feature is optional and customizable through MCM menus

Get the mod here./se version.

11. The Alchemist’s Cookbook

With this mod, you'll have more potions and poisons than you'll know what to do with.

Alchemy in Skyrim can be extremely useful, but it sure is strange. A very small amount of potion recipes exist in the game, and you still don’t learn the effects of the ingredients upon reading them. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find eating a Giant’s Toe or a Daedra Heart just to see what it will do in a potion very immersive.

Features:

Recipes for every useful combination of ingredients are added to the game (over 40,000 recipes for the base game), support for ingredients added by mods like Rare Curios, Saints and Seducers, and Toxic is included in the installer
Recipes are distributed to Alchemy stores, and some are available as loot from enemies
Your character will have access to more recipes as your alchemy skill improves, giving more incentive to leveling your skills

Get the mod here for SE.

10. Item Durability

An example of what your armor will look like upon needing to be repaired.

The fact that Skyrim doesn’t require items to be repaired is convenient to most. However, if you’re looking for new features that will add new challenges to your game, this mod will be perfect. Don’t worry, this mod isn’t Breath-of-the-Wild style where your items just snap in half and disappear forever. They’ll just need you to repair them every now and then!

Features:

Armor loses durability when you get hit, and weapons lose durability when you hit things, and it will up to you and your skills to get them back in working order
Items not only decrease in value as they deteriorate but their damage or armor rating decreases as well
This mod uses the temper quality system, so you repair items the same way you would improve their quality in the vanilla game

Get the mod here for SE.

9. Followers Stay Close

A funny look at how close your followers would stay if you had a bunch of them with you.

If I named everything frustrating about followers in vanilla Skyrim, we’d be here all day. However, one of the biggest annoyances they bring is getting themselves lost or separated from you. This results in them sometimes not following you into dungeons as they should, and it’s just terribly frustrating. If you want to put an end to it, this mod is a great start.

Features:

Followers will stay closer to your character than they did before, allowing less room for them to get lost and annoy you
Your follower will speed up when they get too far behind you to allow them to catch up as quickly as possible
The mod has an MCM menu so you can tweak the values to your liking

Get the mod here./se version.

8. Compact HUD

A detailed image showing the customizable elements of Compact HUD.

The vanilla HUD layout for Skyrim isn’t anything to write home about. It’s not awful, but it could definitely be improved. Changing the layout and design of these HUD elements can certainly go a long way towards making your game feel completely new. This mod uses a few specific things to customize the HUD to this level, so be sure to (as always) pay close attention to the requirements on the mod page!

Features:

A redesigned HUD that focuses on bringing items on the bottom left together for a more streamlined look
This preset can be customized to your liking with the MCM menu provided by the required Less Intrusive HUD
Due to the mods this uses to work, everything is highly customizable

Get the mod here for SE.

7. Simple Offence Suppression

No more NPCs getting angry at you for accidentally stabbing them with an axe. (Not very realistic, but useful).

No one gets their feelings hurt like an NPC you accidentally attack. I’ve accidentally hit a guard during a dragon attack and suddenly the whole town was ignoring the dragon and after me! This mod will provide a simple fix for this.

Features:

Neutral NPCs now react to attacks as friendly NPCs do, allowing a certain number of attacks before they are hostile towards you
Option for NPCs to set to allies, being able to be hit several times outside of combat while ignoring all hits from your character during combat
Extremely aggressive actors are always hostile upon being hit, and enemies will behave as they normally do

Get the mod here for SE.

6. SmoothCam

Giving some welcome changes to the camera in Skyrim can make it feel entirely different.

Changing up the way the camera behaves can really go a long way in creating a new feel for your next adventure in Skyrim. SmoothCam is a highly customizable camera mod that allows you to install presets from others or create your own. If you want to try out SmoothCam and don’t feel like creating your own preset, Souls-Like SmoothCam seems to be a great option to try out.

Features:

Adds a frame-interpolated 3rd person camera with 6 forms of interpolation (global, local, offset, zoom, separate Z, and FOV)
The preset system allows for 6 presets to be saved at one time, and allows you to easily change between them on the fly
Lots of customizable features, including adaptive crosshairs, arrow prediction, and much more

Get the mod here for SE.

5. Minimalist Quick Loot

A screenshot showing the new quick loot interface, very minimal indeed!

Quick Loot is an absolute game-changer for Skyrim. If you aren’t a big fan of the standard UI for the original Quick Loot RE (which is a hard requirement for this mod) this could be for you! Minimalist Quick Loot has a much more simple feel that will make your next playthrough feel completely different.

Features:

This mod removes and edits multiple aspects of the Quick Loot menu present in the original mod
Versions that include the title of what you’re looting (ie: Barrel) or without titles
Made by the same mod author as Compact HUD above in this list, the mods pair very well together

Get the mod here for SE.

4. Trade Routes- Regional Economy

Trade Routes is a highly customizable mod (as seen here).

Do you ever wonder why the items that are for sale in Riften are the same items available in Dawnstar? Trade Routes is an extremely detailed mod that changes more than you could imagine about buying from merchants all over Skyrim.

Features:

Adjusted gold values across different holds, and merchant supply of foods, animal pelts, ingredients, ores, ingots, and much more depending on the supply and demand in that location
Something not easily available in Whiterun will fetch you a higher price when selling than something they have plenty of in their city
This mod allows for unique ways to make profits, or even just to make the game feel much more realistic and immersive

Get the mod here./se version.

3. Minimalist Dialogue Interface

A look at the full version of this mod that has no background behind the new, minimal font.

If you really want your game to feel new, changing up the dialogue interface will do just that! Since this menu is something you see constantly, changing it is something you’ll notice constantly while playing.

Features:

Removes the background and clutter surrounding the dialogue menu
Removes the name of the speaker and the exit button, and the dialogue options vanish while the character is speaking
Lite version includes the characters names if that is something you prefer to keep

Get the mod here for SE.

2. Completionist - Quest Tracker

Track your quests like never before with Completionist!

If you’re looking to keep track of your quests and keep them more organized this time around, look no further than Completionist- Quest Tracker. Apt-ly named for those who want to see what quests they have done or still need to, this mod is a huge improvement over the vanilla quest journal. (It’s worth noting that this mod is an MCM menu, and doesn’t replace the quest journal).

Features:

Automatic tracking of all vanilla and DLC quests
This mod is used through an easy to use MCM menu
Support for tons of modded quests, a full list of those included are on the mod page below

Get the mod here for SE.

1. Tame The Beasts of Skyrim SE

The animals and beasts of Skyrim are more important than ever before.

If you’ve always wanted to befriend and fight alongside some of the less friendly creatures of Skyrim, this mod is for you. This mod has tons of detail put into it, and even includes breeding of said animals. Pokémon fans, try to not spend all of your time trying to breed the most powerful pet: there is a dragon trying to destroy the world after all.

Features:

Journey to the new pet store in Whiterun, where the store owner will teach you how to tame animals (this is where you can take animals to try and breed them)
Successfully taming animals depends on both their level and health as well as yours
The ability to track your pets, feed them, or even sell them... but how could you?

Get the mod here./se version.