GamesRPGSkyrim Special EditionIf you spend more time downloading Skyrim mods than actually playing them, ‘Vanilla Plus’ modding is the excuse you need to dive back inWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGSkyrim Special EditionIf you spend more time downloading Skyrim mods than actually playing them, ‘Vanilla Plus’ modding is the excuse you need to dive back inWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Bethesda)
Sometimes I like to spend an afternoon messing up Skyrim with aKorean mod that drops an entire modern-day city into it, complete with motorbikes that replace the horses but still neigh disconcertingly when you ride them. Maybe I’ll try out thatbanned mod that turns Skyrim into World War 2next.
But when I go back for a longer playthrough, my tastes get much more plain. I don’t want dragons that look like “Macho Man” Randy Savage. I want dragons that look like dragons, and a Skyrim that feels like Skyrim—just tweaked to seem a bit fresher.
“Vanilla Plus” is what Skyrim modders call the school of thought where you find mods that embrace the original game’s better qualities, rather than trying to bend it into something completely different. We won’t be replacing all the NPCs with botox perfection today, nor will we be turning the combat into a soulslike. Sadly, there is no place for Thomas the Tank Engine in a Vanilla Plus loadout.
The first step is graphical, but rather than the kind of ENB reshade that makes every outdoor scene an Instagram sunset, I go withCommunity Shaders. First uploaded in 2023, the work of the Community Shaders Team provides a foundation for graphical improvements without a performance hit—though you’ll need to let the shaders compile on your first load after installing them.
Image1of2Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
Image1of2Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
Image1of2
Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)
Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)
Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)
Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)
Before Community Shaders(Image credit: Bethesda)
After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
After Community Shaders(Image credit: The Community Shaders Team/Bethesda)
We’re not quite done with the graphics yet, but the final steps are a little more optional. Though I don’t want to give everyone a glam makeover, I do wantHigh Poly Heads and Hair for All Vanilla NPCs, and because the uniform grottiness of everyone in Skyrim seems a bit much at times, I addClean Vanilla Bodiesto do away with that distracting dirt.
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Finally, while I think it’s a bit too much hassle spending 15 minutes to configure one mod that creates custom Level of Detail models (which I’d need to reconfigure every time I change my mind about what other mods I want installed) just to do away with some pop-in, there is a lazy shortcut available.Perfect Terrain LODwill populate those mid-range cells with trees and grass so they don’t appear with alarming suddenness whenever I wander across the plains near Whiterun, and it’s a one-and-done install.
(Image credit: deleted93399393/Bethesda)
Now we’re finally done with the visuals, it’s time for combat. Rather than adding dodge rolls, camera lock-on, and stagger bars, Vanilla Plus means enhancing Skyrim features like the variety of spells your average wizard hanging out at Fellglow Keep has at their disposal. Because the AI defaults to casting whatever does the most damage, however, they rarely use them—unless we installNPC Spell Variance. This mod also affects your followers, who should now cast healing spells on you and other allies.
One last thing we want to add is some quests, because while we’re not looking to replace the entire story it would be nice to shake up some of the side stuff.Fortune’s Tradehouseis a bundle of sidequests based around a new location in Markarth that feels the most like authentic Skyrim out of any quest mod I’ve played, whileSkyrim Extended Cut – Saints and Seducersreplaces an underwhelming Creation Club quest from the Anniversary Edition with an homage to Oblivion’s Shivering Isles expansion, complete with a voice actor who does such a good Sheogorath impression I had to check he wasn’t the original guy.
(Image credit: ECSS Dev Group)
That should be enough to be getting on with, though I will also add SkyUI and A Quality World Map and Alternate Start and Dynamic Collision Adjustment because I can’t help myself, though the virtue of limiting yourself to a specific mod style like Vanilla Plus is you’ve got an excuse to stop. The hardest part of modding is knowing when you’re done. When I commit to a Vanilla Plus playthrough it gives me a reason to say, no, actually I don’t need to add theLeaps of Faith from Assassin’s Creedthis time, and instead I can close the Nexus Mods tab and actually play the game.
Hopefully, for longer than it took to install all those mods this time.
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