Skyrim mods top 100 million monthly downloads, 12 years after launch

The Elder Scrolls VI is a long way away, only entering pre-production in early 2022. To the uninitiated, that statement might fill them with despair, but players are very happy scampering across Skyrim for the 558th time.

Just like Skyrim, the next game is said to be brimming with things to do as an aim of its potential two-decade life cycle. When you see the number of live service titles that have been lost in this year alone, it looks like Bethesda was ahead of the game (literally) in safeguarding the single-player experience in Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls VI.

The fifth game in the series is 12 years old, and yet, it's earned a throne for itself in the gaming zeitgeist. Players have challenged themselves to complete the game per certain conditions, like wielding a poisoned fork as their only weapon, and others made the most of the expansive modding tools to satisfy their fantastic creativity.

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Skyblivion of course comes to mind when we mention Skyrim mods, yet there are mods ranging from the teeniest tiniest of improvements, to sweeping overhauls that borrow from games like Sekiro, to joke ones that make all weapons looks like they've been lifted from My Little Pony. Yes, if you can think it, it probably exists thanks to the game's Nexus Mod community.

PCGamesN notes that today there are almost 60,000 mods and over two billion downloads for the Special Edition of Skyrim, having hit 100 million monthly downloads recently. Moreover, there were approximately 50 new mods uploaded to the website a day in 2022, showing that the appetite for content will likely never be satiated. And I'm not mad about that. I mean, look at the Thiccens mod, turning all of the chickens in the world to chunky units. Who cares about the sixth game when we've got these?