Skyrim Special Edition: Best Modlists On Wabbajack

Skyrim modding has been around since the game was first released back in 2011. The modding community experienced a renaissance back in 2016 when Skyrim Special Edition was released. This newer version of Skyrim is capable of supporting more mods than the Legendary Edition and is more compatible with modern PC hardware.

Because of this update in performance and stability, the community has been able to create massive modlists using a wonderful little program called Wabbajack. Wabbajack is an automated modlist installer that can be downloaded onto a user’s PC. This program allows its users to both create and download modlists for a number of games. For the best experience, it is recommended that users get a Nexusmods premium account to make the downloading of mods less time-consuming.

Updated November 30, 2024, by Hamza Haq: Skyrim modding has come a long way since its inception back in late 2011, when the game first launched. Gone are the days of laboriously slaving away for hours upon hours trying to troubleshoot conflicts between different mods, adjusting the load order in just the right way, and looking up readme files and guides on YouTube and GitHub to understand what went wrong where and why Skyrim isn’t running anymore. Now, players who want to play modded Skyrim can borrow the expertise of experienced mod authors and their understanding of what constitutes a stable ultra-modded Skyrim experience by using modlists hosted on Wabbajack. Despite their ease of use, however, installing a modlist is a huge commitment because even the smallest ones range from 100-200 GBs to download and recommend a Nexus Premium membership. Larger modlists can get as big as 500-600 GBs. Knowing which modlists suit one’s taste before committing to an install is great information to have, especially for those with limited storage space or bandwidth.

10 Do Not Go Gentle

• Key Features: Incredible visuals with a neutral tone, built on a Requiem base but with combat mods, includes large-scale quest mods.

Most Requiem-centric lists tend to either forgo visuals entirely or favor a gritty, dark, unforgiving, low-fantasy world look. But Do Not Go Gentle is a balance between the two extremes. Offering a compromise between the intrinsic harshness Requiem promises while still integrating incredible visuals that even mid-tier PCs can handle.

The Author has also added some combat mods with new animations to bring a modern combat experience to Skyrim while still being compatible with Requiem; not an easy ask. Combined with large-scale quest mods like Vigilant, it offers content to explore outside of the Nordic snows of Skyrim for players who are tired of visiting Whiterun for the six hundredth time.

9 Path Of The Dovahkiin

• Key Features: Overhauled perk trees, converts Skyrim into an ARPG, a large focus on combat both by changing how it feels and by adding enemy variety.

Path of the Dovahkiin strives to bring the ultimate ARPG experience to Skyrim. The list takes inspiration from classic RPGs like Diablo 2, Path of Exile, and Last Epoch. Path of the Dovahkiin achieves this by having large perk trees, increased enemy variety, repeatable dungeons, and plenty of new weapons and armor.

The list is also focused on replayability through near-endless character-building theory crafting. Everything included in this list is centered around making the player character a powerful, enemy-slaying, gold-collecting, loot-hoarding machine. This list is perfect for those looking for a fun ARPG power fantasy experience.

8 The Phoenix Flavour

• Key Features: Improvements to all aspects of the game while keeping the core concepts of Skyrim alive, lots of visual changes, serves as an excellent base to experiment with personal preferences.

The Phoenix Flavour is a visual and gameplay-focused modlist that features over 700 mods. The modlist’s main focus is on being a coherent and stable experience. The Phoenix Flavour is one of the more demanding lists on Wabbajack, luckily it has some performance options for those who have weaker PCs.

This modlist also includes some combat-enhancement mods like Blade and Blunt and Dragon War – Reduced Difficulty. The list also has ultra wide-screen support, allowing Skyrim to be enjoyed in crisp 4K. This list is a great choice for players who are looking for a vanilla-plus experience.

7 Ghoulified Reality

• Key Features: Requiem 3BFTweaks-based, performance-friendly, excellent graphics, unpaused menus.

At the core of Ghoulified Reality is an even more hardcore version of Requiem, called 3BFTweaks, which takes the already intense level curve and difficulty setting of Requiem and dials it up to eleven while attempting to make the game feel more fair by introducing different balance changes and modifications to the base formula.

Ghoulified Reality combines the visuals of NGVO, a graphics-only modlist, with the punishing gameplay of 3BFTweaks. To add to the element of danger, the modlist also uses Skyrim Souls, which makes the menu unpaused, just like Dark Souls. This prevents players from cheesing encounters by freely downing health and stamina potions whenever their meters get low, making each encounter much more dynamic and fun to play.

6 Nordic Souls

• Key Features: Vanilla+, Extremely stable, Beginner friendly, Suitable for Low-end PC

Vanilla Plus lists are popular for a very good reason. They are easy to get into because players don’t have to learn completely new mechanics and secrets that a lot of the heavier lists on Wabbajack introduce, while still elevating the base Skyrim experience to something truly enjoyable.

For those looking for the definitive Vanilla plus Skyrim experience, Nordic Souls is the way to go. This mod list promises a general uplift of everything in Skyrim, from the graphics to the weapons and armor to the NPCs, by using SimonMagus’s suite of mods as a base. All the while, it still remains performance-friendly enough to run on potato PCs. A core tenet of Nordic Souls is to remain as lore-friendly as possible; everything added to Skyrim feels like it belongs in the Elder Scrolls universe.

5 Lost Legacy

• Key Features: Legacy of the Dragonborn integration, QWEST successor, a focus on Power fantasy instead of immersion, overhauled graphics with a focus on giving the game a touch of high fantasy vibes.

The Lost Legacy modlist is the successor to the very popular QWEST modlist. This list is compatible with both Anniversary Edition and Special Edition. The list is focused on being a full-on power fantasy modlist. It accomplishes this through its inclusion of Vokriinator and the EnaiRim mod package.

Lost Legacy also includes plenty of quest mods and 5000+ Legacy of the Dragonborn museum displays, so there are plenty of new things to see and do. The list also includes some optional survival mode mods and mechanics as well as performance options.

4 Living Skyrim

• Key Features: Enhanced visuals, more NPCs, more quests, and an overall more interactive Skyrim experience. Perk tree Overhaul.

Living Skyrim is about breathing life back into Skyrim. The inspiration for this modlist comes from the author’s experience of playing vanilla Skyrim and finding that he/she had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one to talk to at many moments in their playthrough. The author seeks to correct this by adding new NPCs, quests, dungeons, followers, and more.

That goal on its own would be enough to make this list a fan favorite, but the author has gone the extra mile in adding other additions like gameplay enhancements, extra combat mechanics, larger perk trees, new spells, and enhanced visuals. This list is an excellent choice for players looking for a slower-paced playthrough.

3 Wildlander

• Key Features: Requiem Overhaul to serve as a base. Survival-focused mechanics like food and drink management, weather effects, and more. Hardcore gameplay-focused with a heavy focus on optimization. Integrates Noxcrab’s tweaks.

Wildlander is a massive modlist centered around the ever-popular Requiem overhaul. Requiem is a massive overhaul that touches practically every aspect of Skyrim‘s mechanics in some way, shape, or form, with the intention of transforming Skyrim into the true RPG experience it could have been.

Wildlander expands upon this Requiem with added visuals, quests, NPCs, locations, and mechanics. The modlist utilizes survival mechanics and is considered a hardcore experience, although, there are options available to make the modlist easier for players looking for a more casual experience. This is one of the most ambitious modlist on Wabbajack, featuring an entire roadmap for planned features and updates.

2 Apostasy

• Key Features: Power fantasy, incredible visuals, unpaused menus, custom mods, stances, new animations

Apostasy is the latest creation of Aljo, a renowned mod author who has a history of putting together extremely stable, modern Skyrim lists like Fahluaan, Arisen, and Ascencio. Apostasy is a power fantasy modlist that’s not meant to be especially challenging. Combat is rehauled using the Stances, a mod that give the Dragonborn four different movesets for every weapon type, with completely new custom animations for all attacks.

Best of all, Apostasy adds a whole bunch of custom mods not found anywhere on Nexus that were built by Aljo specifically for Apostasy in order to give players who play it a truly unique experience. In this modlist, players can backstab enemies, use attacks of opportunity, inflict status effects like Bloodied and Confusion, and a whole lot more. Custom difficulty sliders are there as well for players looking for a more hardcore playthrough. To round it all out, Apostasy includes a ton of new content in the form of quest mods, followers, player equipment, and a lot more.

1 LoreRim

• Key Features: MCO, Requiem, Modern Animations, Noxcrab’s Tweaks, Active discord community, Immersion-focused, Incredible visuals

LoreRim takes Requiem’s incredibly satisfying power curve and combines it with the game-changing MCO (Modern Combat Overhaul) mod, adds Stances with unique animations, and packages everything with the latest and greatest graphics mods Skyrim’s modding community currently has on offer. Where so many Requiem mod lists are afraid of building on top of the overhaul, LoreRim isn’t. And that helps it stand out from among the crowd.

LoreRim also offers three different presets: Performance, Normal, and Ultra, to make sure the list is accessible to as many people as possible. The overarching goal of LoreRim is to be as immersive as possible by reducing the need for menus as much as possible. Once it’s properly set up, everything from switching spells, swapping weapons, chugging potions, and even equipping armor sets can be done entirely using hotkeys. It does take some time to understand the ins and outs of all the changes that biggie_boss’s LoreRim brings to the table, but once players get the hang of it, there is truly nothing else like it on Wabbajack.