Introduction

I needed something to fill my free time while waiting for Watch_Dogs to be released. I started playing Thief 2014, but got so bored with the repetitive missions that I stopped at chapter 6. Boredom has been a big problem for me with games, lately. Gorgeous rendering and A-list voice acting can't making up for the complete lack of novelty and variety.

Lacking any better ideas, I watched a Let's Play video of Skyrim after it had been heavily modded with new survival and immersion mods that I had never heard of: Frostfall? Skyrim Redone? Realistic Needs and Diseases? While the particular LP I watched wasn't all that interesting to me--a whole hour of real time spent hunting for food and finding clean water to drink isn't my cup of tea--it did clue me into the new generation of mods available for Skyrim. Some of them looked really interesting.

But could I stand to go back to Skyrim? After my fourth playthrough I had seen everything, done everything, all DLCs, all quests, all silliness, like blasting baskets of apples with Fus Roh Dah off the pinnacle of the Throat of the World. Could there really be anything interesting left to do in the land of the Nords? Let's go through my Skyrim bucket list:

Play a female Altmer spellsword to save the world from Alduin's and Miraak's menace, win the civil war for the Empire, and retire to a hand-built house near Falkreath with two adopted kids and Aela as housekeeper, check!

Play a male Orsimer assassin Vampire Lord and lead the Brotherhood of Skyrim back to glory, while also obliterating the Dawnguard for good measure, check!

Play a female Breton thief and clean out the corruption in the Thieves Guild, regain Nocturnal's blessing, and explore every location in Skyrim, while winning the civil war for the Stormcloaks (go figure?), check!

Play a female Nord wandering blacksmith/miner, just to see if it is possible to earn 5,000 septims just by mining ore and crafting weapons and armor for sale, without completing a single quest, not even a radiant, check!

After completing all of the above, I figured there was nothing left for Skyrim to give, but all of the above was played on very vanilla Skryim. I think I had a total of five mods by the end, all of them beautification mods that made Skyrim and people look and sound prettier, nothing else. I didn't even have any of the Unofficial patches.

Could I mod Skyrim enough to achieve a bucket list goal I didn't think would be interesting enough to try on vanilla Skyrim? I know that using the word "interesting" is questionable, from someone who spent a whole playthrough just mining and crafting, but I was desperate for something challenging! Could I play a male Nord bounty hunter that loved nothing more than hacking and slaying every bandit he could get his hands on? Not a measily half dozen bandits, either, waves and waves of them. I wanted to be knee-deep in dead bandits!

The answer is: yes!

In fact, this uber mod of Skyrim has been so engaging that the release date for Watch_Dogs has come and gone and I haven't even tried it yet. Not until I finish Helgen Reborn, then Cerwiden's follower quest, then the Salem DLC-scale quest mod, etc., etc.

My next post will be the full load-out of mods I used for my fifth playthrough.