Gameplay features are pretty important, and I don’t have to tell you that. Regardless of how simple or complex the mechanisms are, how much we enjoy a game depends on how much we like their loops. And Skyrim’s loop is incredibly enjoyable. You can spend hours just walking and feel like you’ve achieved self-actualization.
The world of modding, however, adds to the number of ways we can play Skyrim. And that’s where overhauls come in. It’s kind of an umbrella term, so in this list I’m going to be talking about mods that tackle some large-scale changes. Things like perk-trees are just a basic example, but expect skills and other gameplay features. Anything that might change how you play the game.
This is going to be constant for all mods that make large changes. Compatibility might be an issue with your other favorite mods, and even ones on this list. Some might be mild conflicts, and others might be downright incompatible. It’s always a mood idea to check out the description to see what’s compatible and what patches are available.
15. SPERG
SPERG, Skyrim Perk Enhancements and Rebalanced Gameplay, is a lightweight perk overhaul mod. Even though it remains close to vanilla for the most part, it also makes a decent amount of changes. And they’re interesting too. Sometimes eyebrow raising, but mostly fun.
The most noticeable feature of this perk overhaul is the automatic perks system. It won’t choose any perks for you, you still get to choose your build. But every time you reach a certain threshold in skills, you’ll automatically earn a ranked perk from that tree. It’s like earning a bonus.
There are some other notable changes too. I found an interesting perk in the Speech tree that reduces stamina usage. There were other things that made me wonder if these belong there either, but at the end of the day, it’s a fun mod that lets you play with many different builds.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
14. Moonlight Tales - Werewolf and Werebear Overhaul
Playing as a werewolf was fun. I quite liked transforming into a beast of Hircine and mowing through my unsuspecting enemies, feasting on their hearts to feed my bloodlust. But there are some problems with that playstyle. For one, Skyrim’s werewolves plateau really fast. At a high level, you’re more likely to destroy if you transform.
Moonlight Tales takes everything that’s related to werebeasts and pushes them to the limit. On the surface, it lets you transform into both werewolves and werebears, the latter already existing in the base game but unplayable. You get to choose some cool skins for your beast form for customization. The perk tree also gets an overhaul, making them much more formidable and useful.
The world is also more dangerous and full of surprises. Be prepared to face werewolf hunters if you have the beast blood in you. It also expands the features of the Ring of Hircine. Lunar transformations are now a thing. And most importantly, the mod alters and complicates the process to get cured of the curse.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
13. Sacrosanct - Vampires of Skyrim
The idea of vampires have allured people for quite a while now. And when we get our hands on a build like this, players can’t resist trying it out. Skyrim’s take on vampirism was enjoyable, but it suffered from the same problem as lycanthropy. Not enough depth, and it becomes underpowered very quickly. Sacrosanct aims to change that.
The most noticeable difference here is reverse progression. That means you’ll be stronger when you’re well fed. The feeding mechanism is also expanded. Drinking the blood of a high ranked NPC or draining them to death will give you a bigger power boost. Becoming starved of blood will make NPCs attack you out of fear.
There’s a long list of powers and abilities that the mod adds or modifies. you can find a description on the mod page. One cool feature is that now you’ll get a new racial ability depending on what race your character is. And yes, the Vampire Lord form has been buffed up to be actually powerful for high level gameplay.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
12. Wintersun
Faith is very important in all forms of literature, and The Elder Scrolls lore really digs into the many possibilities of beliefs. It’s a shame that the game doesn’t have an immersive mechanism for religion. Praying in front of a shrine for a little blessing isn’t exactly how religions work.
Wintersun expands the worship mechanism with the existing Aedra and Daedra in-game. But instead of stopping there, it also adds many varieties of faiths and religions from the pages of the lorebook. Becoming a worshiper is a devotion now. Kneeling in front of the shrine isn’t enough, you as the player will have to learn the tenets of the god you choose and uphold them.
You’ll begin with a basic ability from your chosen deity. As you uphold their rules and earn their favor, you’ll earn more power. But if you break them, there will be consequences. With 50 deities to choose from, this expands the roleplaying options tremendously!
11. Undeath Classical Lichdom - The Ascension (Lite)
Okay, before I get into what this mod does, we’ll need a little background. Undeath is a mod that adds a unique necromancy quest. The player has the option to either stop the necromancers, or take their power for themself. Becoming an undead lich!
Being a lich is like having a new form, like werewolves and vampires. It’s also very powerful. There were two mods that expanded Undeath’s system. This mod patches the two in a way, and then does its own thing.
Onto the fun stuff! It borrows the appearance system from The Ascension, meaning you can now customize the appearance of your lich form. New features allow you to keep your vampire or werewolf form while you become a lich! It includes all the bug fixes and power progression from Classical Lichdom. Playing as a lich has never been more fun!
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
10. Imperious - Races of Skyrim
Choosing a race should be an important thing. No, racism isn’t cool, but in The Elder Scrolls every race has stats that affect how they play. It’s a little homogenous in Skyrim, and this mod makes some tweaks to try fixing that.
Imperious diversifies the stats of the different races and gives them unique abilities. Everyone starts with something cool and different, but there are also quests to unlock new powers. They are pretty cool and fun to do, and the new powers make gameplay more interesting.
Now, I will admit that some of the quests assume too much. For example, all Dark Elves seem schizophrenic, because their ancestors are telling them to kill strangers for power. It does make for challenging gameplay though, and you’ll have to take the race into consideration for your next playthrough.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
9. Hunterborn
Looting in vanilla Skyrim is pretty simple. Once something is dead, you interact with it and take whatever you want from its inventory. I actually quite like this system’s simplicity. But if you want to make it complicated and add some features and difficulty, this mod is more you.
Hunterborn completely changes how you loot animals. You actually have to dress and skin the animal before you can get the alchemical and crafting necessities. If you don’t have the time, you can just carry the carcass, but that’s heavy.
To be honest, it goes beyond turning Skyrim into Red Dead Redemption. It adds many new alchemical ingredients and potion recipes. You’ll learn to craft new, cool things as you keep hunting. So if you use other mods that deal with those, make sure to check for compatibility.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
8. Andromeda - Unique Standing Stones of Skyrim
Standing stones in Skyrim are pillars which offer the player with passive bonuses. Some of them are pretty boring. The Warrior, Thief and Mage Stones give you a 10% bonus to the rate at which you gain experience in their skills. The Atronach Stone gives you a chance to absorb enemy magic, easily letting you become a mage hunter.
This is where Andromeda steps in and tries to make them all very interesting. Now every stone will give you two new powers. Once you’ve discovered all thirteen standing stones, you’ll unlock a third power!
It would be a tiring list if I wrote down everything the stones do. And it would take away the joy of discovery. The starting three stones keep their original blessing, but their new ones are interesting. For example, Mage Stone lets you cast Novice spells without any cost! This mod is a must-have for diverse builds.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
7. Perkus Maximus
There have been many mods that have overhauled Skyrim’s perks, weapons and many other aspects. Perkus Maximus is one of the most exhaustive and impressive of them. Unlike most of the mods in this list, it truly is a Skyrim overhaul.
The mod’s design principle sums up what it tries to do. It diversifies the perks so that everything is unique and has a use. With an insane number of perks and limited perk points, players will have to plan their builds better.
The magic system is redesigned so that no spells are just powerful versions of a different one. For the fighters, it adds an insane amount of weapons while implementing three different criteria for damage. The thief trees don’t have a specific focus, each tree doing their own thing.
Two important things to note. The Lockpicking and Pickpocket Trees have been merged, and a new tree called Wayfarer has been added. This is a lore tree that makes you familiar with the world of Skyrim. The other thing is… the perk descriptions are very fluffy and don’t clearly tell you what they do. It’s frustrating, but the mod is still very impressive.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
6. Morrowloot
One of the most common things in modern RPGs is level scaling, and we see this not only in enemies but also in locations and loot. While this makes it possible for players to go wherever and have a good time, it also hurts some other aspects. Contrast it with Morrowind, where the world was delevelled, meaning you’d really work hard for special loot.
Morrowloot Ultimate brings this feature to Skyrim. Loot is delevelled, meaning everything you’ll find has been deliberately placed instead of using the algorithm. Expect to find Dwemer loot in only Dwemer dungeons, and no random Daedric gauntlets spawning in random chests.
Because it’s trying to simulate a Morrowind-like experience, a lot of things are touched. Expect encounter zones and smithing recipes to be altered. There are other mods which do similar things without deviating from the Skyrim feel, but none of them do it to this extent.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
5. Ordinator
While EnaiSiaon has two perk overhauls. The reason I’m choosing this one over Vokrii is because the other one is supposed to be vanilla plus overhaul, and my list is mostly concerned with things that really change things up. And Ordinator definitely fits the bill.
This mod increases the number of perks from 251 to 469, almost double the number. But more isn’t always better. Ordinator’s approach to perk modding is to make them very unique, and it does succeed with flying colors. In the same way as Perkus Maximus, it makes a lot of changes. One example is the Smithing perk tree, where now you can hack automatons and even deploy your own.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
4. Path of Sorcery
This is yet another perk overhaul mod. However, this one only deals with magic, meaning it can be compatible with some of the other ones as long as the mod page gives it the green light.
The goal of this mod is to make the magic progression balanced. Once again, it would be impossible to explain all the perk changes. The mod’s description page has a detailed overview, but these things are better experienced. What’s important is that there are less passive perks and nothing as boring as ‘increase power by 10%.’
Download Mod: Special
3. Book of Shadows
When it comes to stealth gameplay, the Book of Shadows is a game-changer! With a name like that, it would have been a shame if it wasn’t. This mod has ‘behavior based’ in its title, meaning it uses the animation behavior settings of Nemesis. That was another ground-breaking mod that opened up a whole new world.
Let’s talk about the features. You have masks that will hide your identity when worn in secrecy. You might remember a similar feature in the old Sneak Tools. It works the same way, but with a cool animation. You can throw smoke bombs to blind your enemies and make a run for it.
The sentry system is very cool. The mod detects eligible NPCs and gives them warhorns, which they’ll sound when they see someone unwanted. This will alert nearby NPCs. No longer will everyone know by psychic bonds!
And now for the coolest feature - takedowns! If you attack any non-essential NPC with your right hand unarmed, your character will play a choking animation and knock them out. They’ll wake up eventually, and it doesn’t work on essential NPCs because that might break the game. Either way, you can functionally play a thief who isn’t a murderer!
Download Mod: Special
2. Frostfall
Imagine walking through the frozen lands of Skyrim without a shirt on. And now imagine doing that in real life. Hypothermia is not fun, and Frostfall intends to introduce this not-fun-feature into the game.
Despite what I said, this mod does make the game a lot of fun. Assuming you like elements of realism and a challenge, Frostfall will force you to familiarize with the world of Skyrim and plan accordingly. No long will you be able to swim through an icy lake and not die.
While many lighter alternatives exist for Frostfall, the reason I chose this one is because of how many features this mod has. It even introduces skill-trees for survival, so it really does go the extra mile. Whether you like survival gameplay or not, give it a try at least once.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
1. Requiem
Skyrim is a very fun game, but if you’re someone who enjoys a real challenge, then it might not be the game for you. I know many people look for the difficulty offered by old-school games, like the early 2000s stuff. While Skyrim is not that game, there is one mod that turns it into one.
Requiem is a punishing and merciless experience. Unlike vanilla Skyrim, you can’t just jump into conflict without extra consideration and expect to come out of it. The difficulty is very deliberate, with the intention of putting players in the shoes of the adventurers and making them make decisions accordingly.
Like all games that are frustratingly difficult, they become fun once you learn the mechanism. Fun and rewarding. Requiem is one of those experiences. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s worth experiencing this nightmarish but also fair take on Skyrim.
Take note, if you plan to use this with Morrowloot, don’t use the Ultimate version. According to the author of MLU, Requiem is better used with Morrowloot 4E, since MLU was created as an alternative to Requiem.
Download Mod: Legendary | Special
You may also be interested in:
- [Top 10] Skyrim Combat Mods We Love!
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- [Top 10] Skyrim Best Vampire Mods We Love!
- [Top 10] Skyrim Best Swords and How to Get Them
- [Top 15] Skyrim Best Builds of All Time
- [Top 10] Best Skyrim Horror Mods For a Brand New Experience
- [Top 10] Skyrim Best Mods for Mages
