Skyrim’s combat has not aged well. Weapons and magic are the weakest part of Bethesda’s crowning RPG, and after a decade each is more akin to hacking at a tree stump or clapping your hands together. Bethesda did a great job modernizing its shooting mechanics in Fallout 4 and Starfield, but we’re still waiting on the team to do the same with Elder Scrolls 6’s combat. Until then, this new Skyrim mod does something truly astounding and adds a dense dismemberment system to the game, making fights feel new again.
Dismemberment makes the combat of games like Metal Gear Rising and Dead Space timeless. Suddenly you’re making tense on-the-fly decisions during fights, and nothing beats watching enemy limbs soar all over the place. From ‘Seb263,’ this brand new Skyrim mod brings that same mechanic to Bethesda’s RPG, with intense gory detail.
Seb263 combines real-time dismemberment, realistic blood splatters, and adaptive sound effects depending on armor and weapons to create something truly astonishing. Skyrim’s difficulty isn’t impacted and dismemberments only occur when an NPC’s health reaches zero, but watch Seb’s trailer below and tell me Skyrim doesn’t look like a different game.
Watching the Khajiit have its tail and head cut off feels oddly disrespectful, but it shows just how reactive this dismemberment mod is. Seb’s mod operates entirely through Skyrim’s engine, so it works with almost every other mod and doesn’t get in the way. The system is so ingrained into the game that NPCs can even dismember each other as well.
You can enter a decapitation animation in Skyrim’s vanilla game, but this mod takes it to a whole new level. Between the dynamic sounds and blood splatters, Seb’s work isn’t just a set of standard animations, but an entire system that completely changes how you fight in the game.
Seb recommends you install the ‘Precision’ mod, so limbs are severed according to the precise area targetted. This means all your attacks are even more deliberate, mirroring how you slice specific body parts in Metal Gear Rising.
You can download the Dismembering Framework mod right here, and Seb263 recommends downloading their two asset packs to help the mechanic work across even more of the game’s NPCs and creatures.
There are plenty more games like Skyrim if you’re sick of Tamriel while waiting for the Elder Scrolls 6 release date. Otherwise, we’ve put together all the best fantasy games instead.
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