Realistic Lighting Overhaul – An alternative to ELFX, there are many comparisons online you can find and decide which you would prefer.

Can be too dark for some people, options below are less extreme.

Enhanced Lights and FX – An excellent lighting mod that almost entirely removes ambient lighting so the game is lit mostly by sources such as fires.

The ambient lighting is too high, everything looks washed out and torches are all but pointless. has this as an optional feature, but if you use Pure Waters you’ll have to use this if you want the waves.

Waves – Adds the oceanic waves from the Dragonborn DLC to Skyrim’s coast.

This mod adds the crumbled remains of Oblivion gates to Skyrim’s landscape, it’s lore friendly, visually pleasing, and a nice addition for anyone who once played Oblivion.

Oblivion Gates – It’s said that Skyrim was hit by the Oblivion Crisis very badly, yet two hundred years later and the signs of damage are nowhere to be found despite ruins still standing from thousands of years earlier.

No ENB presets are shown here, and neither are any texture packs as I believe the optimized Bethesda High-Res pack is enough. The mods I will show here are not a complete list of mods to get Skyrim looking as good as it can, my goal is to showcase relatively small graphical changes that improve the look of the game while still maintaining a vanilla look and performance. Skyrim is a very pretty game, but it can look even prettier.

Skyrim special edition deadly combat