The best Steam Workshop Skyrim mods
Last night, the Steam Workshop was updated to support Skyrim mods. It’s a central repository for community made content, from tiny tweaks to total overhauls. After one night, there are already 459 mods up that you can add to the game with a click.
Steam handles downloading, installing and activating them in-game, and will even automatically update them when a new version comes out. But the sheer volume is kind of daunting right now, so we’ve trawled through to find you the highlights, divided into three categories that broadly reflect the trends in what people have made so far.
Skyrim Creation Kit to be released tomorrow with “special surprise”
A tweet from Bethesda’s VP of PR, Pete Hines, on Friday announced that the long-awaited Skyrim Creation Kit will be out tomorrow. TOMORROW. The tools will let modders create their own campaigns using the same tools that Bethesda use to create their environments. Take a look at last week’s Creation Kit trailer for an idea of what’s included.
Mass Effect texture mod makes massive improvements to main characters
A couple of us in the office are going back through Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to prepare ourselves for the finale when the third game comes out in March. The first game is four and a bit years old now and the textures are starting to look a little runny. Thankfully, Duncan Harris presents a solution via the excellent Dead End Thrills with a link to a massive texture pack that adds masses of detail to all of the main characters of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.
Skyrim mod lets you summon undead dragons and dual wield greatswords
If there are three words you’d want above any other in your Skyrim spell book, “Conjure Undead Dragon” would be the those words, closely followed by “Conjure Spectral Bear.” The Tytanis mod adds both of these abilities, along with a fat tome of additional updates, including new magical greatswords that can be dual wielded with a beefed up Warmaster perk.
PCG Plays: GoldenEye Source
In this edition of PC Gamer Plays, we’ve harnessed the mystical powers of moving pictures to showcase one of our favorite mods: GoldenEye: Source. Check out the introduction above to set the stage, then find out why the remake comes so highly recommended in the following videos, which include a black tie duel against the mod’s developers (spoiler: they’re really good).
The 25 best Skyrim Mods
Skyrim mods are amazing. In the two months since release, thousands of mods have been released, some of them quite spectacular. It’s not like Skyrim was an ugly game to begin with, but with new high resolution textures and post processing it becomes truly stunning. Not to mention new items, expanded crafting and a full UI overhaul.
With so many mods available, choosing them can be a little daunting, which is why we’ve rounded up the 25 best here for you to enjoy. Check inside for the full list.
Red Orchestra 2 mod tools released
The full version of the Red Orchestra 2 SDK has been released for free, giving RO2 owners the opportunity to create maps and game modes for Tripwire’s multiplayer shooter. The developers have released a few limited versions of the SDK, but the full suite of tools is now available.
“Users can now make and publish everything from simple mods and mutators, through custom maps and on to full total conversion mods,” Tripwire say, mentioning that big mods like Rising Storm, In Country Vietnam and Iron Europe are already in development. You can grab the mod tools from the Tools tab of your Steam account.
Tripwire are no strangers to the modding scene. Killing Floor and Red Orchestra started out as mods for Unreal 2004. Hopefully the SDK release can inspire another wave of talented modders.
Skyrim Online adds multiplayer: not quite ready for primetime
Skyrim Online has achieved what many thought impossible. It’s giving Skyrim players the chance to play online. Previous attempts to do the same with Oblivion and Fallout 3 ended in failure, but modder awpsoleet has managed to get a rudimentary alpha version of a Skyrim MMO up and running even before mod tools have been released.
The mod is currently extremely basic. Players can chat with eachother and see a representation of other players. The mod’s description claims other players are represented by a ‘spectral horse’, which sounds hilarious, but the version I tested instead had unclothed player models in a standard animation pose, gliding around. You can attack and cast spells on other players, but they don’t currently display any effects.
Despite all this simplicity however, the mod represents an impressive first step on the road to a true Skyrim MMO mod. We’ll definitely be adding it to our Skyrim Mods list, and keeping a close eye on it.
Skyrim ENBSeries mod boosts visuals, version one out now
Do you remember this impressive Deus Ex: Human Revolution mod? It was built by Boris Vorontsov, author of the ENBSeries graphical mods which also formed the basis of the spectacular ICEnhancer mod for Grand Theft Auto 4. He’s just released the first version of one for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. You can download it now from Skyrim Nexus.
Skyrim Mods: the 20 best so far
Skyrim mods incoming! It’s now been two weeks since the game was released, and there’s been and explosion of modding activity. Skyrim was already an amazing looking game, but with just a handful of these mods it can look even better. Not to mention a whole host of bug fixes, stability improvements, interface tweaks and gameplay enhancements.
Once again we’ve rounded up the best, prettiest, most useful and funniest mods to enhance your Skyrim experience. Check inside for the full list.
Skyrim map mod provides in-game street views
We’ve been keeping a close eye on Skyrim Nexus for our Skyrim Mods post, but this one impressed us so much it deserves its own post. Not so much a mod as a set of tweaks, Map in full 3D shows you how to modify the game’s ini file to make it possible to zoom the in game map right down to the ground. The result is essentially a free camera mode that lets you roam anywhere in the world. It’s like the google street view team was let loose in the frozen north.
We’ll be adding this to our list of Skyrim mods in the next update. In the meantime, if you want some cool locations to explore with it, why not try our Skyrim tourist guide?
The 11 best Skyrim mods so far
Skyrim is a wonderful game. It’s so good that Tom gave it 94% in our Skyrim review, but as good as Bethesda games are, they’re always a little bit better once they’re modded. Amazingly, despite the fact that the game has only been out for a few days, there are already over a hundred mods on Skyrim Nexus. We’ve rounded up the best of the first wave – they’re not game-changers, but some of these are worth taking a look at.
We’re planning to regularly update this page as more mods come out. New mods will be added and old ones will either be updated or fall by the wayside.
The 25 best Minecraft mods
Minecraft has the best modding community in the world. Despite no official mod tools being released, players are constantly expanding and adding an astonishing amount of new content.
We’ve tracked down the very best Minecraft mods to transform your game into something extra-amazing. This list combines the up to date mods from our previous installments and ten new ones into a list of the top 25 Minecraft mods the internet has to offer.
Lord of the Rings Last Days mod released for Mount and Blade, looks amazing
The Lord of the Rings Last Days of Middle Earth mod for the original Mount and Blade has been released after five years of work. The mod lets you fight and command all the factions of Middle Earth, no less, with some top notch custom armour sets, new textures and new locations designed to bring Middle Earth to Tale World’s medieval rags to riches pillaging sim. Find out more and see some fantastic screenshots of the mod below.
The 10 best Dead Island mods
Despite being slightly broken on release, Dead Island has scored legions of fans who enjoy nothing more than slaughtering zombies in its open-world island. We liked it. Thanks to a Halloween tie-in sale it’s currently sitting at number five in the Steam charts, and it’s already got an impressive number of mods for such a recent game.
This is partly due to it being fairly simple to mod, and partly due to bits of it not working on release. Open up its PAK files in WinRAR, then tweak certain settings with notepad to your undead heart’s content. This simplicity has resulted in mods which do everything from make zombies’ heads come off every time you hit them, to changing the game to make it more like Crysis.
