Skyrim Special Edition accounted for 65% of all Nexus Mods downloads last month, proving that the wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 is nothing more than a skill issue

Skyrim
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Over a decade has passed since Bethesda Game Studios blessed us with Skyrim, arguably the company's most iconic RPG to date - and players evidently are still not sick of it, judging by the Special Edition's downloads on Nexus Mods.

Skyrim mods aren't going anywhere, it seems, and Nexus Mods serves as proof. The platform for sharing and downloading user-created mods for games is iconic to fans of Elder Scrolls titles and other big RPGs, ranging from Baldur's Gate 3 to The Witcher 3. Of all the games with mods on Nexus, however, there's one that downright dominates - and it's none other than Skyrim's 2016 Special Edition.

According to Nexus Mods' own data (highlighted via Soanfriwack on Reddit), November saw around 393 million mod downloads in total. Of these almost 400 million downloads, Skyrim Special Edition took up a whopping 255 million - that means that just under 65% of all mods downloaded from the Nexus were for Bethesda's revamped RPG. In other words, the Special Edition accounted for a wild two-thirds or so of Nexus Mods' ever-growing traffic.

Skyrim SE is 65% of all Nexus mod downloads! from r/skyrimmods

Considering how many other games' mods are available, these figures are mind-boggling. Bethesda takes up a massive lion's share of downloads - by the time you add Fallout, Oblivion, and OG Skyrim, you're looking at a full 74% of all the mods installed last month. Soanfriwack points out that the only other "significant" games taking up that remaining 26% are Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Stardew Valley.

As a Skyrim stan myself, though, I doubt those figures will change any time soon. The Elder Scrolls 6 is still likely quite a long while away from arriving, and creative modders are constantly uploading new downloads on Nexus' website. Just today, I can see 90 new mods have been posted with almost 500 across the week thus far. 

"It makes me sick": Skyrim modder with 475,000 downloads, fed up with "daily harassment," abandons modding after "thousands of hours" of work on what she calls "the most advanced follower to ever exist"

Anna Koselke
Staff Writer

After spending years with her head in various fantastical realms' clouds, Anna studied English Literature and then Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, going on to specialize in narrative design and video game journalism as a writer. She has written for various publications since her postgraduate studies, including Dexerto, Fanbyte, GameSpot, IGN, PCGamesN, and more. When she's not frantically trying to form words into coherent sentences, she's probably daydreaming about becoming a fairy druid and befriending every animal or she's spending a thousand (more) hours traversing the Underdark in Baldur's Gate 3. If you spot her away from her PC, you'll always find Anna with a fantasy book, a handheld video game console of some sort, and a Tamagotchi or two on hand.

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