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Welcome to a new monthly series showcasing the best The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Editionmods. With the launch of Skyrim Special Edition on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, console players now finally have access to the wealth of mods for Bethesda’s open-world RPG that PC players have enjoyed for years.

We’ve scoured the complete mod database at Nexus Mods to find you the best mods if you like to roleplay, tweak the UI or graphics, or even flat out cheat. As with our Fallout 4 mods guide, we’ll do our best to cater to as many different types of players as possible.

Here are this month’s selections of the best Skyrim Special Edition mods:

Ive tried ELFX as well as RLO, and also a couple of ENBs and Reshades. But everything is way too dark! I record Skyrim for lets plays and I cant have pitch black interiors as no one on Youtube can see it then. I know theres been posts like this for old Skyrim, but what about Special Edition?

For the Roleplayer

Top Pick: Sofia

Love your followers? Wish they had a bit more… sass? Look no further than Sophia, the raven-haired beauty that only has your best interests at heart. We swear. She’s witty, rebellious, and will sing you that special Skyrim song you’ve come to know and love — just with the wrong lyrics. Fall in love, and you can even marry her!

For the Ninja

Top Pick: Sneak Tools

Sneaking around in Skyrim can be pretty fun, allowing players to avoid detection, muffle their movements, and granting a small collection of other skills. For those wanting to augment this feature, there’s Sneak Tools. With this mod, players can slit throats, knock people unconscious, kill sleeping targets, and equip identity-concealing masks. As if that weren’t enough, the mod also provides a small collection of arrows with different capabilities, as well as the ability to extinguish and light sources of fire.

For the Environmentalist

Top Pick: True Storms

Want to make Skyrim even more immersive? Try True Storms, the weather-augmenting mod. It completely overhauls the game’s storm system, including lighting, new weather, sound effects, textures, wind, and more. Players can even enjoy the sound of rain hammering against their roofs while inside. A set of sliders let you adjust the volume of thunder, rain, and interior sounds.

For the Graphics Geek

Top Pick: Better-Shaped Weapons

If you’ve been playing the Elder Scrolls games for long enough, you know that the weapons in previous games looked much more realistic. For some reason, the weapons in Skyrim are bulkier and less elegant looking. The Better-Shaped Weapons mod fixes all that. It replaces the weapon meshes with slimmer, more refined versions. The mod even lets you bling out your swords with gemstones so you can cruise the dungeons of Skyrim in style.

For the UI Tweaker

Top Pick: Unread Books Glow

One of the more annoying things in Skyrim is stumbling across the same book repeatedly and having to check to make sure you’ve actually read it. The Unread Books Glow mod helps alleviate that frustration by imbuing unread books with a soft glow. In addition, the glow comes in several different hues, depending on which type of book you’re looking at: spell tomes, skill books, quest books, and regular books.

For the Cheater

Top Pick: Gifts Of Akatosh

Sometimes you just need to flip on god mode and blast your way through things. Whether you’ve gotten your fill of the game or you’re just inherently a rule-breaker, the Gifts Of Akatosh mod is just for you! Once you’ve got this mod installed, take a jaunt over to Riverwood to find the chest Akatosh has left for you.

Inside, you’ll find a trove of items, ranging from weapons that paralyze their victims with a chance to turn them undead to a shield that blocks all magic while lighting your foes on fire. There are 15 different types of artifacts players can gather for their dragon-punching adventures.

There are a bunch of mods already available for Skyrim Special Edition that help throw you into the world of Skyrim with increased immersion. If you've wondered around with sword and shield feeling rather disconnected, then just install weather, lighting, and ambience mods to really bring the game to life.

Enhanced Lighting and FX

ELFX is a superb mod and is always a must-have whenever I'm installing Skyrim for another playthrough. It's aim is to make the game more realistic and atmospheric by removing lights without a source, adding lights to those with sources and throwing in effects like smoke and more for good measure. Dungeons and interiors are darker (less fog, yay!) but feel more real as you scram for the nearest lantern or whip out a spare torch to light up approaching foes.

Vivid Weathers Special Edition

We covered True Storms in our best Skyrim Xbox mods list, but Vivid Weathers is also worthy of a shout out. I'll allow the mod description to do all the talking:

• Over 500+ Weathers - Clear, Cloudy, Blizzards, Snowstorms, Rainy, Rainstorms, Foggy and Thunderstorms... everything you need!
• Complete replacement and enhancement of every imagespaces, so a ENB is not needed to have a immersive weather experience
• Adjustable Interior and Night Brightness via ingame menu
• Adjustable Saturation and Bloom via ingame menu
• Support for: Dragonborn, Dawnguard, Falskaar, Wyrmstooth, Summerset Isle (Conversion OG -> SSE in progress)
• Over 150 new cloud textures
• 16 new deep thunder sounds for bad weathers
• Immersive sunrise and sunsets by selective cloud coloring
• Extended ground-fogs that adds volumetric fogs on foggy weathers
• Real Skyrim Snowflakes that add in-game particles snow for a completely new snowfall and blizzard experience
• New stars and galaxy textures
• Distant mountain fogs and rain effects
• Moving fog particles seen during heavy fogs
• Immersive sunsets/sunrise textures
• Several replacements and fixes for smoke and fog textures (Vivid Clouds and Fogs)
• Enhanced ENB-Friendly Ambient, Tints, Fogs, and Clouds colors

Yes, that list is huge, and yes you should install this. There's nothing like a vampire rushing out to bite you from darkened fog during the night.

Darker Nights

The evenings in vanilla (unmodded) Skyrim are far too bright. It just doesn't look right. Yes, I get we're Dragonborn, but come on. I shouldn't be able to see for miles at 2a.m. This is where Darker Nights comes in by making the nights darker. The mod gives the player the choice as to how dark the nights become, just in case you're not one to carry torches around and like to spot enemies before they carry out an ambush.

Nordic Snow

Formally known as HQ Snow Texture, Nordic Snow enhances all the snow across Skyrim. There's a lot of snow in the game so it makes sense we take the time to install a mod that improves the quality of the fluffy stuff. It even glistens and shines in the sunshine of a new dawn, which is always a sight to behold after you come out of a cleared dungeon.

Wet and Cold

This is a superb mod to have in your arsenal. Characters now have water dripping from them during rain and after coming out of a swim session, footsteps now cause splashing, breathes are visible in colder areas, snow accumualtes on armor and hair during snowfall, and blizzards cause a reduction in movement. It makes the snow parts of Skyrim feel much more real.

Conclusion

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This is our shortlist of immersive mods, which should take your Skyrim experience to the next level when traversing the massive landscape. Using the aforementioned packages with other mods can create some memorable moments, but what do you use? If you happen to have a mod or two installed that you feel should be in our list, be sure to shout out in the comments!