Skyrim: An Expert’s Guide On The BEST VR Mods [Top 25]

To this day, Skyrim is kept alive, not only by its re-releases but also by its community that keeps bringing all kinds of mods whose scale ranges from small QoL changes to ambitious projects that add new areas and side quests into the game. Likewise, the community has also actively worked on many mods for Skyrim VR that bring tons of meaningful changes to the VR version of the game to increase player immersion. The VR version of the game is built on the same engine Skyrim Special Edition was on, so naturally, the mods of the Special Edition are compatible with the VR version.

Here’s a summarized list of all the best Skyrim VR Mods: 

Mod	Description
Bandolier – Bags and Pouches Classic	Offers a selection of various equipment that help in easing burden
JK’s Skyrim	Applies a lore-friendly and script-free Overhaul of the cities and towns of Skyrim
Flora Overhaul	Dedicated to overhauling the Skyrim landscape with more varied and better looking flora
SkyUI	It's a Elegant, PC-friendly interface mod with many advanced features
Realistic Lightning Overhaul	Gives a complete overhaul of the games lighting system and is one of the most comprehensive lighting mods available
Weapon Throw VR	Allows you to throw your equipped weapons in VR by holding a button, swinging your hand, and releasing it
Clear HUD VR	Improved version of Less HUD VR, provides an installer that lets you hide certain HUD elements for Skyrim
Smilodon – Combat Of Skyrim	Improves the combat experience by enhancing combat AI
Project AHO	It's a large quest modification, it adds a hidden settlement of Great House Telvanni to Skyrim
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch	It's a comprehensive bug fixing mod
Immersive Speechcraft SE	Adds several dialogue options to most of Skyrim's NPC's
The Forgotten City	An expansion mod that offers a unique 6 - 8 hour experience
Open Cities	A comprehensive project that aims to bring back at least part of the feel of Morrowind
Reputation	Creates a reputation/morality score for your character based on the quests you complete
Immersive Amazing Follower Tweaks	Adds new functionality and makes changes to the dialogue menu system
SMIM – Static Mesh Improvement Mod	Improve the appearance of countless static 3D models in Skyrim
Sounds of Skyrim	Merged version of the three individual mods, Sounds of Skyrim - Civilization, Sounds of Skyrim - The Wilds, and Sounds of Skyrim - The Dungeons
Simple Realistic Archery	Automatically unequips your arrows after shooting them, then reequips the arrow after pressing the trigger over your shoulder
MageVR	VR-ized actions that let you immersively use spells, weapons, potions, poisons, shouts, powers, realistic archery and soul gems and pick locks
No Stagger Mod	Makes your character unstaggerable
HIGGS	Adds many native VR mechanics and enhanced physics to Skyrim VR
PLANCK	Offers a physically-driven animation in Skyrim
Onyx – VR Weathers	Weather mod based on Obsidian Weathers
Dragon Speaks Naturally	Adds speech recognition to Skyrim so that you can speak the dialogue lines aloud to select them
VRIK Player Avatar	VRIK will display the player character's body in SkyrimVR and animate it to match your movements

25. Bandolier – Bags and Pouches Classic

First on my list is the Bandolier, which brings a noticeably small yet very effective change to Skyrim VR. On paper, these mods basically increase the amount of weight or weapons, potions, or items you can carry at a given time, and while, yes, this can be done through other means as well, it’s the bags and pouches that are visible on your character is what makes it really great.

The bags and pouches are compatible with various types of armor sets in the game and really make you feel like an adventurer carrying a huge pile of essentials with him.

24. JK’s Skyrim

JK Skyrim is an overhaul mod that breathes new life into the major cities of Skyrim in terms of graphical fidelity. The improvements brought by this mod are not just surface-level improvements to the overall visuals of the game.

This mod changes everything that is present in the cities, from bells, entrances, weather effects, taverns, citizens, the exteriors and interiors of the buildings, sewers, trees, stores, and more.

23. Flora Overhaul

Flora Overhaul SE is a complete overhaul of Skyrim’s Flora by adding 18 new tree models, and 65 new grasses and plants, increasing the size and width of trees and grasses and increasing the snow density in snowy regions of Skyrim.

22. SkyUI

As I mentioned above Skyrim VR is fundamentally the same as Skyrim Special Edition, which also means that there are dozens of things that don’t work well for VR since VR is not just a first-person view with more control or immersion. One of those issues is toggling through the inventory. While in VR, searching through the inventory is quite problematic when using the game’s normal UI. 

SkyUI fixes this issue by introducing a much more streamlined version of the inventory interface, that works well for not only the PC version but also for the VR version of the game.

21. Realistic Lightning Overhaul

Realistic Lightning Overhaul makes the lighting of interiors and exteriors as realistic as possible. With this mod, the developers aimed to use light sources to produce lightning in a way that looked realistic and removed illuminations with no light sources. This means that rooms with few candles will look dark and more realistic.

20. Weapon Throw VR

One of the biggest gimmicks of VR games is throwable objects and weapons to knock out your opponents. Since Skyrim doesn’t have the option to throw your weapons at the enemy, you can’t do that in VR as well, robbing the VR version of one of its most remarkable features. Weapon Throw VR allows you to do that and brings VR’s coolest feature to Skyrim.

19. Clear HUD VR

Clear HUD VR is a mod for the VR version of Skyrim, that allows you to clear the screen of its HUD. By default, it will clear everything on the screen, but at the same time, if you feel like there should be some bars or parts of the HUD visible on the screen, you can turn them on at any given time by going to its configuration menu.

18. Smilodon – Combat Of Skyrim

Smilodon brings various improvements to Skyrim combat which include: Improved enemy AI, timed blocking, faster and more responsive combat and attack animations, and a configuration menu to enable or disable several mod features. If you really want to go into Skyrim VR with a melee build, consider downloading Smilodon mode beforehand.

17. Project AHO

Like the Forgotten City, Project AHO is also a free expansion-like mod that adds hours of new content within the game. Project AHO adds a brand new region of Sadrith Kegran that is built upon the ruins of Dwarven City. 

I suggest trying out the mod as it adds new locations (over 40), brand new houses, new civilizations that have their own distinct routine and habits, side quests, sounds and music, armor, weapons, and much more. According to the developers’ Project AHO is comparable to the size of a medium-sized DLC. This leaves little to no reason why you shouldn’t install this mod, as it adds more content to the game, giving you more incentive to spend more time in Skyrim VR.

You can read more detailed info about its various additions on Project AHO wiki.

16. Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch

Bethesda is infamous for releasing buggy games at launch and not bothering to fix any of its issues, even in the re-releases. Skyrim, at this point, has multiple re-releases now, yet it’s still riddled with issues that Bethesda probably thinks are features. Thankfully the modding community of Bethesda is always on it whenever Bethesda releases a buggy game. 

Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch fixes hundreds of gameplay, quests, NPC, items, and object placement bugs and transforms the game into a much better and playable state. It is highly compatible with other mods and makes no harmful changes in the game in order to ensure an authentic experience without the bugs.

15. Immersive Speechcraft SE

Next, I would recommend trying out Immersive Speechcraft SE as it expands the number of dialogue options you can select when interacting with an NPC. This isn’t just about selecting more or fewer questions, but it actually expands the dialogue trees with meaningful options that you can utilize to gain some sort of benefit.

14. The Forgotten City

The Forgotten City is one of those modes that adds a brand new city in Skyrim and all of the essentials that should be with it, like a community, puzzles, side quests, NPCs, and music. It offers an 8 hours murder mystery campaign with several different endings. The Forgotten City has won Writer’s Guild award, too, and is a must-play for any Skyrim fan.

13. Open Cities

Open Cities removes those loading screens and allow you seamlessly travel between cities and the overworld without any interruption. Moreover, due to the removal of the loading screen, you will also be able to take your horse inside the cities and explore it while mounted. The dragon battles that got interrupted due to loading screens will now flow seamlessly, giving a massive boost to your immersion.

12. Reputation

Reputation adds a morality system to Skyrim, where actions you take will have consequences. This is a great immersion mod if you want the world and the people that live in it to have a reaction to your actions, both moral and immoral. Likewise, the dialogue you select, the choices you make, and the alliances you form will have an effect on other NPCs, for better or worse.

11. Immersive Amazing Follower Tweaks

Immersive Amazing Follower Tweaks is an enhanced and more immersive version of Amazing Follower Tweaks that replaces some of the video-gamey options with more immersive and natural lines, such as substituting “Tweak Options” with “Let’s talk about your abilities.”

If you want to role-play Skyrim like a conqueror traversing the lands of Skyrim with a loyal army behind, then I would highly recommend trying out the Immersive Follower Tweaks.

10. SMIM – Static Mesh Improvement Mod

SMIM mods add thousands of improved meshes and placements that make those objects look just as good as the others. In VR, where every immersion is very important and can be ruined once you start seeing these little inconsistencies, SMIM guarantees a consistent experience where the low-poly models will no longer ruin your immersion.

9. Sounds of Skyrim

Sounds of Skyrim is a massive mod that adds more than 460 sound effects to the world of Skyrim. The aim of this mod is to make the environments feel authentic and immersive. It merges various Sounds of Skyrim modules such as The Wilds, The Dungeons, and Civilization, overhauling almost the entire game with various sound effects, which also change in accordance with the time of the day.

8. Simple Realistic Archery

If you want to play as an Archer in Skyrim VR, we highly recommend going with the Simple Realistic Archery mod. This mod allows you to map different arrows to different buttons while also being able to change the position and size of the quiver along with the attribute costs. 

7.MageVR

As evident from the name, MageVR adds a much more realistic mage playstyle in Skyrim VR. This mod allows you to cast spells on the go by drawing various signs and glyphs by your hand instead of selecting them from the menu.

While this looks very immersive on paper, the developers warn the players about the difficulty curve that comes with this mod, as you won’t be able to pause the game for casting spells and instead will have to rely on muscle memory.

6.No Stagger Mod

Due to no VR-exclusive enhancements made in Skyrim VR, the combat system, especially melee, can fall apart since it was not developed with the VR version in mind. Getting staggered in VR is janky and ruins the flow of the combat.

No Stagger Mod makes causes you not to get staggered by enemy attacks and allows you to continue the flow of the combat without making you feel dizzy or nauseous.

5. HIGGS

I believe Skyrim VR has many features missing that are integral to the VR experience. Luckily, the Skyrim community has developed such mods that turn Skyrim into a proper virtual reality game, and HIGGS is one of those mods. HIGGS basically adds real-world interaction similar to other VR games.

Additions such as weapon and hand collision, the ability to two-hand weapons, picking up objects with either hand, grabbing distant objects through “gravity-glove,” grabbing and moving bodies around, real-time looting, and much more are possible thanks to the HIGGS mod.

4. PLANCK

PLANCK complements HIGGS by making further adjustments to the improvements and changes brought in by HIGGS mod. The most notable ones are the adjustments to the player’s and enemies’ ragdolls. Actions such as petting a dog, holding someone else, or throwing any weapon or object at others feel more natural and accurate, which obviously you can’t do in the base game.

Apart from the adjustments made to weapon attacks and their hitboxes, PLANCK also allows you to use grabs as a means to stop a character, whether an NPC or an enemy, from performing a stabbing attack. A highly recommended mod from me to use alongside HIGGS.

3. Onyx – VR Weathers

Some weather aspects, like volumetric lightning, are disabled in Skyrim VR, and according to the creators of the mod, trying to make the foliage look consistent and balanced is very tricky, and more so in VR. Onyx VR Weathers balances the lighting so that flora and fauna look consistent and parts of the environment don’t have different colors, which kind of ruins the look of the scenery overall.

It includes five different versions of night-time darkness, as normally night-time doesn’t have one color, and depending on the time of the night, the sky and the scenery can look less or darker. This mod makes the environment looks more natural and consistent due to accurate volumetric lightning and weather colors to ensure a consistent VR experience.

2. Dragon Speaks Naturally

Dragon Speaks Naturally is another immersive mod that allows you to interact with NPCs via actual speech. Upon interaction, instead of selecting any option, you’ll be able to speak out the option out, adding a layer of immersion in Skyrim VR.

It is basically a speech recognition mod and plays a vital role in adding immersion to Skyrim VR. It should be noted that this mod isn’t compatible with the Anniversary Edition, and the developers have advised the players to stick with Skyrim Special Edition for this mod to work.

1. VRIK Player Avatar

Diving into huge RPGs via VR increases the player immersion tenfold, but that is often ruined when you start to notice that your character is just two floating hands instead of an actual character. VRIK Player Avatar aims to fix that problem by rendering the entire player model into the game along with all of the necessary animations to make it look more natural overall.

Fully configurable weapon holsters, hand gestures, drawing out weapons in real-time, compatibility with other mods, mod configuration menu, and displaying complex scenes in 1st or 3rd person are some of the features that come with the VRIK Player Avatar mod.

My Take On Skyrim Mods

Out of numerous mods options in Skyrim, these are my top favorite ones to try out as it gives us the most interesting features. Keep in mind the mod discussed in my list don’t include launcher or script-loading mods that enable other mods to work. Each mod has a separate requirement for working, and I recommend referring to the linked websites in order to know the required mods for these mods to work. 

If you are considering hopping out of Virtual Reality and diving back into the base game, consider checking out our guide on the best Skyrim mods. As we have talked about followers several times in our guides, you can check out our guides on Serana and Skyrim Wives. Regarding armor and weapons, you can check out our guides on the best light armor and best one-handed weapons in Skyrim.

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