Update: Skyrim’s Creation Kit has now been released as of February, and more mods have come out since the time of the article. Look forward to an updated list soon.

Here’s an interesting fact: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been out for nearly two months now and hundreds, if not thousands, of mods have been pouring out from the creative minds of fans. This is even regardless of the fact that developer/publisher Bethesda has yet to launch the Creation Kit (which should be due out this month, finally), and yet gamers have already been hard at work making mods to better the game.

As of writing, these are the top mods those with the PC version of Skyrim should probably have in their game. Or at least look into.

While vanilla Skyrim is pretty great looking and has evolved features not seen in previous titles in the series (crafting, cooking, marriage), fans have always found ways to improve upon, well, everything.

Let’s start with cosmetic mods, shall we?

• Skyrim HD – 2K Textures. Skyrim HD is a project for texture enhancement in Skyrim.
  The achived texture resolution is 4-8x (2-8k) bigger than the original ones.
  All the textures are made from scratch. Check out some comparison shots over to the left.

• Improved NPC Clothing – High Res. Textures are now 2048 x 2048 (Original 512 x 512, and look sharper and cleaner. Much of the clothing in vanilla Skyrim look blurry and messy when compared to this improvement.

• A Quality World Map – With Roads. The vanilla map looks good, no doubt, but it was missing something. Something i couldn’t put my finger on until I came across this mod. It aims to give you a World Map that is more fun and accurate to look at. It now has better, higher-detailed textures and introduces detailed roads.

• Skyrim Flora Overhaul. Skyrim Flora Overhaul is a WIP mod project dedicated to overhauling the Skyrim flora with more detailed textures and eventually new higher poly tree models and more variety of trees.

• XCE – Xenius Character Enhancement. XCE is a compilation of all the modder’s enhancements of the characters in Skyrim.
  The latest version also includes content based on the work of other authors.

  What it does:

  – Adds more detail to skin of faces and bodies
  – Gets rid of angular shapes caused by compressed normal maps
  – Adds a lot more detail to the eyes
  – Makes the fingernails more visible
  – Removes jagged edges from the lips
  – Adds more detailed, healed scars
  – Makes the warpaint look more weathered
  – Makes the face dirt more detailed
  – Adds high quality female feet
  – Gets rid of neck seams

• High Res Face Maps for Men by Geonox. This mod adds new high resolution face maps ingame for men. So far the face map comes with stubble there is no clean version yet! And it should be noted, this mod is now also included in the above XCE.

• Beauty Faces And PressOutTheForehead. This mod replaces the face wrinkles of human and elven races, both Male and Female. This is perfect for those who dislike the forehead ridges on the elven races. It’s also based on the above XCE textures.

• Immersive Water. Immersive Water returns in a third version for a best game experience.
  Skyrim (Vanilla) provides only one texture for every type of water, Immersive Water 3 is now composed of different textures for each type of water you will encounter in the game (Ocean, River, Creek, Marsh and Normal Water).
  Also, the waterfalls and foam have new textures.

Armor and weapon mods:

• Weapons of the Third Era. Since the destruction of Vvardenfell, many inhabitants of Morrowind have emigrated to Skyrim. With them came unusual weapons and smithing knowledge passed down from the third era.
  Types of new weapons:
  Longswords
  One-handed swords
  Battle Staves
  Nodachis
  Katanas
  Wakizashis
  Tantos
  Scimitars
  Axes
  Sabers
  Clubs
  30+ new meshes
  50+ new weapons in total

• Triss Outfitt For TES V Skyrim. Conversion of Triss Outfitt from “The Witcher 2” to TESV Skyrim. Lots of discussion over this mod has been circulating, with legal permissions over its use. But The Witcher creator CD Projekt RED ultimately is okay with conversions of their work into other games.

• Triss Armor Retextured. Same mod as above, only it offers more recolors. Some actually better than the original, allowing you to choose based on your playing style.

• Dude wheres my pants – Leather Armor. This mod adds pants to the leather armor, as a replacer. For those who dislike all the “skirts” attached to the armors.

• Magicka Sabers. Adds craftable lightsabers to the game. For lore sake, it’s easy to pretend these are Dwemer creations.

• The Legend of Zelda – A Skyrim Modification. Adds the Master Sword and shield to the game.

Overhauls:

• SkyUI. SkyUI is mod that aims to improve Skyrim’s User Interface by making it easier to use with mouse and keyboard, less wasteful of available screen space and nicer to look at.

• The Retro Project. Ever wonder what those 2D characters from yesteryear where looking at while you were viewing them from the Top or Side the entire time? Well, get a glimpse of what they see! Check out some screenshots of this over to the left.

• Link from Legend of Zelda. This mod is overall better than the above listed Zelda mod, in armor, and background story. Why is this under “overhauls” you may be wondering? Because this mod has you start out the game in a different location, and will probably eventually be fleashed out more once the Creation Kit is released. This Link is a redesign that fits in well with the Skyrim theme. Do not expect to see a specific Link from a specific Zelda, because this is not it. The tool set is still not out so in the meantime the modder is only focusing on Link’s model, Textures, and assets.

  The game starts you off on an alter in a little temple looking place at the Evergreen Grove. There you can grab all your gear from a chest and head off and do whatever you want. There is a marker if you want to start with the main quest, but the rest of the map is blanked out fresh. For better weapons, seek out the above LoZ – A Skyrim Modifiction to mix and match with this mod.

Misc. mods for further customazion (warning: some of these are just for fun. Try not to laugh too hard.):

• No Perk Prerequisites. This mod will remove all perk prerequisites from most perks in the game. They still require that you have the appropriate skill level. Instead of throwing away your perk points on worthless perks just to get to that one useful perk, you can skip right to the perk you want, so long as you have enough skill.

  For instance, if you have 70 Heavy Armor and want weightless armor, you can skip over Fists of Steel and Cushioned and just get Conditioning. You can now pick up Treasure Hunter in Lockpicking and Extra Pockets in Pickpocket without spending half a dozen perk points.

• TESV Acceleration Layer. A SKSE (SKyrim Script Extender) plugin to increase FPS (frames per second) in CPU-heavy areas of the game.

  Users typically report 8-10 FPS increase; some see 2-4, while others have reported an average of 20 FPS incease.

• Move it Dammit. Simple plugin that increases the distance that Companions and Creatures walk to when being “Bumped”

  Cause:
  if Companions or Creatures are in a doorway, sometimes they don’t move far enough and continue to block your way..

  Consequence:
  You Rage!! ..asdf%%@&#?!!FFFF!!!?

  Resolve:
  This esp will tell them to walk around double the distance away from you rather than default values.
  If there is no way forward they will walk around you in a circle, so ensure there’s room for them.

• Skyrim Trailer FUS ROH DAH. Replaces the in-game “Fus Roh Dah” shout, with the one from the trailer. Much better sounding.

• THUNDERCATS HO Storm Call shout. If you play as a Khajiit, this is hilarious. Check out the video demonstrating this mod here. Get the Nightingale armor replacer here, too.

• Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask Moon. Texture replacement replacing the moon with the evil moon from Majora’s Mask. This is what you want to see when you look into the night sky.

• Deathstar Moon. “That’s no moon.” Replaces the moons with the Deathstar.

• Human eyes for Elves. Just a simple replacement of the default elven eye colours with human ones.

• Killable Children. Annnnnd here it is, folks. The “mod-that-shall-not-be-named.” Only, it is named, and many gamers are already having “fun” with it. Personally, I see this as an immersion mod, more than anything else. Speaking of which, you may want to pick up the Essential NPCs Begone mod too, if you’re looking for total NPC immersion. If you’ve been counting, this technically is the 26th mod listed here. It couldn’t be helped, as no list would be complete without it.

All this so far, and without the Creation Kit, no less. Can only imagine what modders will come up with once the CK is finally unleashed upon the gaming world. We shall return to this topic in a few months, once fans have been given some time to deluge into the CK and cook up some more amazing additions for Skyrim.

If you see anything that may be missing here, leave a comment below. Those may be included in the next list, as there is definitely some good ones in need of a spotlight.

Chop, chop, Bethesda. We are looking forward to the Creation Kit, ASAP!