Is it possible to get Skyrim looking so realistic that it takes a second for your brain to distinguish it from reality? Exactly how good can you make Skyrim look these days, using Special Edition as the new baseline and cherry-picking the finest community-made visual mods? Deadendthrills achieved a frankly fearsome level of fidelity with the original version, but years have passed since then and graphics cards have gained multiple zeros on all their spec sheets. And ‘Justin Bieber FORGETS words to 'Despacito' LIVE’, although I’ll concede that’s not immediately pertinent here.Ĭuriosity got the better of me. ‘PHOTOREALISTIC SKYRIM: INSANE MOD!’ they shout. With Skyrim Special Edition those modders have a new and improved base game to work with, and the results are getting seriously close to the hyperbolic promises made in my YouTube sidebar.
It turns out I got off the train early: in the intervening years the modding community has gone from strength to strength, doing its best to keep The Elder Scrolls V looking like it was released last week. Become a giant, fly, walk through walls, spawn any item you want, and even become Santa Claus with Skyrim console commands, and give yourself every item in the game with Skyrim item codes. There's no need to play Skyrim as a humble warrior.
