Highlights
- The modding community for Skyrim has transformed the game into a competent survival title, introducing challenges like hunger, diseases, and temperature changes.
- Mods like Realistic Needs And Diseases and Fast Travel Cost enhance immersion by adding consequences to gameplay choices and making fast travel more strategic.
- Mods like Requiem, Advanced Cooking, and Wearable Lanterns offer unique and personalized experiences, making Skyrim more lore-friendly, immersive, and realistic.
Even without any mods or add-ons, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is still a pretty engaging game. There's such a large map to see and so many different quests to finish that players who plan on finishing the game vanilla-style aren't likely to get bored any time soon. For those wanting to change things up and introduce challenges into the game, turning Skyrim into a survival experience might just be the solution. Countless mods out there change the gameplay in a way that makes it essential for players to focus on details like hunger, diseases, and even temperature changes.
Given how active the modding community for Skyrim is, it's easy to see why the gameplay of this game can be overhauled in such a major manner. No one could've expected this simple open-world RPG to turn into a competent survival title, but the power of mods has managed to turn this, and many other things, into a reality that impresses many people.
Updated November 18, 2023 by Ritwik Mitra: Skyrim is one of the greatest video games ever made, and it's easy to see why players just can't get enough of this wonderful RPG. Even now, more than a decade after its launch, Skyrim still sees an impressive player count as players spend hours upon hours in this incredible title.
The modding support for this game has contributed a lot to letting players enjoy a wonderful time as they tweak every aspect of the game or overhaul major systems altogether, making for a unique, personalized experience every single time. Players who love Skyrim and can't get enough of this great game can check out a wealth of mods to turn the open-world RPG into a brilliant survival RPG!
1 Realistic Needs And Diseases
Downloads: 119,212
- Creator: perseid9, Uploaded by Ro84
- Download Link
Any player will love a mod that heightens their immersion while playing Skyrim, and the Realistic Needs And Diseases mod is a perfect fit for players who want to make the game more nerve-wracking than ever before. With this mod, players have to be extra careful while exploring the world of this game.
The Dragonborn needs to manage their hunger and thirst levels all the time. Overeating can cause players to feel rather bloated, which reduces their stats in combat. Based on how healthy the player's eating patterns are, the Dragonborn can either be really muscular or skinny and weak, which does a great job of forcing players to interact with the game in a way they never have before!
2 Usable Vanilla Lanterns
Downloads: 30,837
- Creator: Ixion XVII
- Download Link
Having a light source in Skyrim is important if players want to turn the game into a hardcore survival experience, with revamped nights making it a pain to see in the dark. This makes it important to find lanterns that can light the Dragonborn's path whenever required.
With this mod, most of the vanilla light sources that look like lanterns but can't be interacted with in the game are swapped with functioning lanterns. It may sound like a small change, but players seeking out a hardcore survival experience will love this immersive change that reduces player frustration if they run out of lanterns.
3 Survival Mode (Creation Club)
Downloads: N/A
- Can be downloaded from the in-game Creation Club store
The Creation Club was met with huge fan outcry, prompting fans to roll back their changes and only allow a few select mods to qualify for the paid category. The Survival mode that players can download in the Creation Club is a great way to make the game more challenging to play.
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In fact, most people would argue that this mod is downright necessary for players who want to turn Skyrim into the ultimate survival experience. It's a great and simple way to add numerous balanced survival mechanics to Skyrim and force players to approach the game differently.
4 Fast Travel Cost
Downloads: 13,100
- Creator: Narue
- Download Link
Fast travel is one of those gameplay features that makes traversing the open world easier, but it also really breaks the immersion. Moreover, it can be easy to abuse to get out of sticky situations by running far away from an enemy and then fast traveling away.
The Fast Travel Costs mod tweaks fast travel so that every time a player uses it, they lose a bit of gold. The amount depends entirely on the distance traveled. This makes fast travel a more strategic choice and forces players to consider when to use it and when to not use it. It also ensures players can't escape the harshness of other survival mods by just skipping any travel time.
5 Requiem
Downloads: 114,163
- Creator: The Requiem Dungeon Masters
- Download Link
If having too many mods is a concern, then Requiem is an excellent choice for players who want to start small and expand from there. Though, Requiem is anything but small. It changes many aspects of the game, making Skyrim much more lore-friendly, immersive, and realistic.
The most important change Requiem introduces is to stop the scaling of the enemies in Skyrim. This means that early on, some areas in the world will feel incredibly difficult and will encourage the player to engage in combat with a more strategic mindset.
6 Advanced Cooking
Downloads: 3,238
- Creator: Corpsehatch
- Download Link
While other mods on this list will make cooking more interesting with new recipes and ingredients, Advanced Cooking tweaks the actual mechanics of cooking to be more skill-based. After all, why would the Dragonborn know instantly how to cook the heartiest, most powerful meal?
Advanced Cooking introduces a sort of cooking skill system. The higher the player's level, the better recipes they can cook. This prevents players from abusing how overpowered some of the recipes in Skyrim are and just how easy they are to make.
7 Immersive Horses
Downloads: 229,686
- Creator: sevencardz, CyborgArmGun, KrittaKitty
- Download Link
With some survival mods and the principles of survival gameplay, fast travel is a big no-no, as it allows players to go past the hostility of the wilds. Due to this, having a good mod that overhauls the horses of Skyrim is a necessity, and there's no better one for this than Immersive Horses.
Not only does it add a bunch of commands and a whole system for summoning a specific horse to the player's location, but it also brings in a few new breeds. Moreover, horses won't just be docile vehicles from now on. They can also attack and move in different ways, making them more adjusted for combat.
8 Simple Taxes
Downloads: 35,600
- Creator: Mattiewagg
- Download Link
Survival isn't just about living and camping in the wild. It's also about managing money and the economy in an era of medieval cities and merchants. Without making things too complicated, the mod Simple Taxes introduces the burden of taxation on the Dragonborn's shoulders.
With money already scarce, the player now also has to budget with taxation in mind. Property like horses and houses will need to be paid for, although their respective cost and whether these systems are active can be tailored depending on the player's wants and needs.
9 Wearable Lanterns
Downloads: 692,630
- Creator: Chesko
- Download Link
One of the most annoying features of Skyrim is the inability to carry a lantern on one's belt for some extra light during the night or in dungeons. Instead, the player is forced to sacrifice either hand to carry a torch or cast a mage light. Wearable Lanterns change this.
The Dragonborn can now carry a lantern on their belt, one which they've crafted themselves as well. This becomes especially useful in Campfire as well since the two mods complement each other when making a campfire or paper lanterns.
10 Hunterborn SE
Downloads: 388,174
- Creator: unuroboros
- Download Link
Survival deals a lot with cooking food in Skyrim, which is a generally underappreciated mechanism of the game. As such, it's nice to have a few additional recipes with new effects to make survival a bit more plausible. Slaying a dragon will now not only yield a bit of loot but also some ingredients for hearty food.
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It's not just new recipes that the mod Hunterborn introduces. The process of actually hunting and preparing the animal for cooking is more complex as well. Foraging for food in the forests of Skyrim has also been changed to feel more realistic, so there's a real reason to get cooking.
11 Diseased
Downloads: 1,721
- Creator: Manaflow
- Download Link
If the diseases in Skyrim feel far too easy to deal with, rest assured there's a mod called Diseased that addresses this flaw to perfection. Rather than having diseases just be temporary negative status effects, this mod makes players care about diseases as they can even present life-threatening symptoms.
Players will have to learn from books how to make cures and appropriately take care of themselves when they eventually do come down with a sickness. In the first care scenario, players can even die if they're not treated in time.
12 Chasing The Dragon
Downloads: 18,638
- Creator: Ghenna
- Download Link
In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the concept of toxicity was introduced as a gameplay mechanic. The use of potions would yield some negative effects on top of the positive ones, which made the whole system feel much more realistic and with concrete stakes.
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Now, a similar mechanic has been introduced with the mod Chasing The Dragon. Overuse of potions will now have some much-needed risks, rather than just being an easy thing to do. Higher toxicity levels will actually stop the player from regenerating any of their attributes. Players can also become addicted to some potions.
13 Mealtime
Downloads: 50,746
- Creator: aviform
- Download Link
When thinking about survival, food is one of the first things that come to mind. There's not a huge amount of variety in Skyrim as it is, which is why mods like Mealtime are absolutely crucial in making the game feel a bit more immersive.
With over a hundred new recipes added to the game, each food item provides a unique value of health to the player. Some even have special effects that players can discover as they learn all the different recipes.
14 iNeed
Downloads: 154,736
- Creator: isoku
- Download Link
Paired well with the Mealtime mod, the iNeed mod is a must-have for anyone who wants some basic survival in their game. The Dragonborn will now have to think about three sets of needs: hunger, sleep, and thirst. All of these have to be addressed roughly three times a day, with the exception of sleep which only needs to be filled once at night.
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Thirst in particular is a really interesting mechanic, as it introduces waterskins as items that can carry some water and need to be periodically refilled. Not tending to the needs will make the character weaker, whereas being well-rested, fed, and hydrated gives positive status effects.
15 Scarcity
Downloads: 77,985
- Creator: Syclonix
- Download Link
Part of survival that's easy in vanilla Skyrim is just how easy it is to find almost any type of loot and sell it for money. When managing needs like hunger, as long as the player has money they can simply buy all their food. However, with Scarcity, this becomes trickier.
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Loot of all kinds is now much rarer and when the player does find something truly exceptional, it makes that find even more rewarding than usual. It's a necessary fix to the bloated economy of the game, which gives players incentive to go out and hunt food on their own when in a pinch.
16 Frostfall
Downloads: 643,573
- Creator: Chesko
- Download Link
Previously, crossing a river in a frozen environment or swimming in a cold ocean wasn't a problem at all for the Dragonborn. However, with this mod, things change drastically. Frostfall makes the weather of Skyrim mean something to the player.
Depending on the location the player is in, the mod will introduce various temperature effects on them, including hypothermia. It also forces the player to consider what kind of clothing they're wearing in each area.
17 Campfire
Downloads: 1,072,695
- Creator: Chesko
- Download Link
It's pretty surprising that a game like Skyrim, with so much nature, doesn't have a camping system. Camps can be found all around the world, but actual camping isn't an interaction or a gameplay feature that's really available to players.
The Campfire mods finally makes this possible. Players can set up their camp by gathering resources and buying tools needed for camping. It even introduces a brand new skill tree that has to do with all things camping.
