Loving Oblivion Remastered? Try This Free Skyrim Total Conversion Mod

If you’ve finished Bethesda’s surprise release, Oblivion Remastered, and are still craving more Elder Scrolls, your best bet might be to revisit older titles. And if you’re bored with the usual Skyrim experience like me, maybe it’s time to try a total conversion mod.

What Is a Total Conversion Mod?

Before diving into the Skyrim conversion mod, I want to talk about, let’s first understand what a total conversion mod actually is. It’s a mod that completely overhauls significant aspects of the game, including the story, characters, major assets, voice acting, world, and so on.

The extent to which the conversion mod changes the base game varies, as some conversion mods do more than others. Some might reuse certain textures, music, and weapon or character models (usually with new names and stats), while others will only keep the game’s engine under the hood and not much else.

The important factor is that the gameplay, story, and (usually) world are completely new, to the extent that the conversion mod can almost be considered a standalone title.

Conversion mods offer the perfect way to re-experience a beloved classic in a new light—and let’s be honest, many of us are tired of Skyrim after all the re-releases and countless playthroughs.

Conversion mods are made by the community, so they’re technically not canon, though some attempt to build on top of a game’s existing lore. It’s best to think of a conversion mod as a completely new game that just happens to look and feel a lot like the game it’s based on.

One of the most recent high-profile conversion mods that you’ve likely heard of is Fallout: London, which takes the engine, general concept, and universe of Fallout 4 but sets it in a completely new location that Bethesda hasn’t explored, at least not yet. The mod has been so successful that some people claim it’s even better than the base game, which says a lot about why total conversion mods are worth your time.

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Enderal: Forgotten Stories Is More Skyrim and a Completely New Game

SureAI’s Enderal: Forgotten Stories is a total conversion mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, complete with its own Steam entry (and a Special Edition one if you own Skyrim SE). If you own Skyrim, Enderal is completely free to play. In fact, most total conversion mods are, since selling them would conflict with copyright laws.

Installing it is extremely simple, as you don’t need to know how to mod, but it’s also worth pointing out that many Skyrim mods are compatible with Enderal (check the list of compatible mods in this Google Spreadsheet), and it even has its own mods on Nexus Mods.

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When you install and boot up Enderal for the first time, you’ll be instantly hit with the same amazing feeling that you likely had when you played your first RPG or The Elder Scrolls game.

Despite being a total conversion mod, it still looks, behaves, and feels a lot like Skyrim, so you’ll have that feeling of playing the famous game, but everything else about it is a completely new experience.

In fact, its story, world, lore, characters, and even music are completely unique to the mod. I won’t spoil much of the story, as it’s worth experiencing yourself, but I’ll say that the writing of the main storyline is top-notch and significantly more mature than Skyrim‘s relatively basic Dragonborn storyline.

I especially love this mod’s world. The country of Enderal is gorgeous and multi-faceted—it’s arguably better and more varied than the barren frozen tundra of Skyrim. You’ll wander around a crystal forest, coastal desert, frozen mountains, wastelands, and more.

Gameplay is yet another aspect where the conversion mod deviates from The Elder Scrolls franchise significantly. While your character moves much like in Skyrim, that’s where the similarities end. Enderal has completely unique crafting and leveling systems, classes, alchemy, enchanting, and so on.

It’s also worth pointing out that enemies don’t scale with your level, a common annoyance among The Elder Scrolls fans. This doesn’t mean that Enderal is easy—it’s actually harder than Skyrim, especially at higher difficulty levels.

Now Is a Great Time to Try Enderal: Forgotten Stories

For many fans, including myself, Oblivion Remastered proved just how much the community longs for a sequel to Skyrim. Unfortunately, The Elder Scrolls VI is still quite a way off, so Enderal and other Skyrim total conversion mods like Beyond Skyrim: Bruma are the next best thing.

If you’ve already heard of Enderal, there’s a good chance you’re also aware of SureAI’s other total conversion mod built for the original Oblivion, titled Nehrim: At Fate’s Edge.

While you can totally play Nehrim, fair warning: it’s old, so it’s not for the general audience. I wouldn’t play it personally, as there’s no nostalgia goggles since my first Elder Scrolls was Skyrim. The mod itself was released in 2010, and it’s for a game that was already four years old back then.

Meanwhile, Skyrim‘s engine still feels relatively modern and isn’t too far off technically from Oblivion Remastered, especially after you mod the base game.

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Enderal: Forgotten Stories is one of the best ways to experience more content in the spirit of The Elder Scrolls franchise. It’s built on the Skyrim engine, so it shares many similarities.

At the same time, it’s a fully realized game with its own story, unique characters, deep lore, breathtaking world, and original gameplay mechanics. If you haven’t played it yet, now’s the perfect time—it’s free and definitely worth downloading!