5 mods to modernize Skyrim melee combat in 2022

Even a decade after its original release, the Skyrim community remains active. This is a big feat for a single-player game (discounting the many community attempts to make it multiplayer). The props should likely go to its modding scene. In 2022, Skyrim could be made to look like a current-gen release on par with PS5 titles with the help of just a handful of mods.

While Skyrim's art direction itself makes its visuals receptive to these modernization attempts, far less can be said for its combat. Even in 2011, its dull and janky melee was a blemish redeemed by an otherwise brilliant game. Thankfully, mods can play the role of a savior in a cape, even in this department.

Many mods have tried to make the melee skirmishes exciting since the early days of Skyrim modding. The revolutionary tools to change it fundamentally, such as Nemesis Behavior Engine, DAR, and so on, however, were developed only in the past two years. Thanks to them, today, we have some of the best modern combat mods that also happen to synergize with each other.

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5 new Skyrim mods that work in tandem to improve combat

1) SkySA

Like all Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, Skyrim was also developed with the player's choice to play in either third or first person. Bethesda's focus was quite obviously on first-person gameplay, as this is what The Elder Scrolls is advertised for primarily.

For third-person players, the biggest impediment to melee combat, at least visually, is that movement and rotation are completely unlocked throughout attack animations. This separation of movement and attack animation data results in what the community aptly calls 'ice skating combat.'

In the early days of Skyrim modding, the band-aid solution for this was to lock player movement and rotation through mods like 'Attack Commitment' or 'Mortal Enemies.' SkySA achieves the same mechanical goals while also reworking the attack animations with in-baked movement data. The result is a solid mechanical framework for engaging Souls-like melee combat.

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2) Elder Souls - The Collection

SkySA is a revolutionary plugin for modernizing melee combat mechanics, but its default animations leave a lot to be desired. To add further tack to the aforementioned SkySA, miken1ke's 'Elder Souls' movesets are a polished set of animations dedicated to specific weapon classes. Thanks to the magic of Nemesis and DAR, the collection adds distinctive movesets for daggers, axes, swords, maces, and the two-handed variants.

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3) True Directional Movement

As it says on the can, True Directional Movement is the bread-and-butter mode for 'modernized third-person gameplay.' The default in-game third-person Skyrim camera is locked to the player model. Moving left and right also causes the camera to stubbornly remain static and move left and right likewise.

Mods like 360 Movement Behavior and 3PCO have attempted to fix this issue before to bring it in line with Dark Souls, but True Directional Movement is the only mod of its kind to change this behavior at the engine level. With this, the unlocked camera not only opens omnidirectional movement, but the player can also attack in any direction independent of the camera.

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4) Shield of Stamina - Blocking Redux

The block skill in Skyrim was well-integrated into the balance for its time. Its formula was derived from its predecessor, Oblivion, in that blocking reduces damage relative to the Block skill level. At the maximum level, this is capped at 85%, meaning that even under perfect conditions, blocking cannot strip away the entirety of the damage. Shield of Stamina is an SKSE plugin that completely reworks this such that the block will first chip away at stamina before touching health.

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5) Smoothcam

Smoothcam is the ultimate modern solution for a third-person camera in the game's modding. It provides customizable camera offsets on all three axes with separate presets for every condition, including horseriding. Moreover, it finally makes third-person archery viable on its own, complete with a trajectory prediction arc. Players can also use community-made presets catering to specific goals.

Note: The article reflects the writer's own views.