How To 

How to Install Mods for Skyrim

Skyrim on it's own is already a pretty amazing experience, but when you've logged more than 200 hours in it, it can start to feel a bit stale. So how do you spice it up and keep things interesting? Mods of course. Skyrim has an absolutely massive mod database available if you are playing on the PC. We've got everything available here, from custom made player weapons and armor, to whole new worlds to explore, they can all be found on the nexus mod database. Here's how you can get them from there and into your own playthrough of Skyrim.

Step 1)Download the Nexus Mod Manager.
Make sure you get the latest version, and that your game is updated to the latest version as well, most mods out there are geared specifically towards the latest version. Running an older version may cause issues or make the game completely unplayable if it starts crashing when trying to load these newer mods on the out of date game engine.

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Step 2)Setup the paths where the Nexus Mod Manager will store the mod archives.
Once you start the mod manager for the first time it will scan your computer for games it supports, one of which will be Skyrim. After this scan it will prompt you to set up a place to store these archives.It's usually a safe bet to keep everything as the defaults here and allow it to set this up itself.

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Step 3) Download the mods you want off of the nexus website.
Go to the www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/ website to find everything you can possibly dream of for modding Skyrim to fit your own personal game play. When you find a mod you want, simply go to the files tab and you'll see an option to download the main files of the mod using the manager. Alternatively, there should be an option to the right of the mod name for 'download(NMM)'. This will automatically download the specific mod you are looking at, using the nexus mod manager.

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Step 4) Enable the mod.
Find the downloaded mod in the Nexus Mod Manager and select it before clicking the enable check mark on the left hand side. This should enable it in game.

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Keep in mind, many of the mods out there build on each other and require the other mods to work. The Nexus is great for this, as when you go to download a mod that requires other mods, it will tell you and you can click on the links to go to each of the other required mod pages to download them as well. Probably one of the first mods you should look into is the SKSE mod. This mod itself won't do much to change your game, but it's required for most other mods out there.