City improvements, new towns, fantastic buildings.
These are not only the things that your governor has promised and failed to deliver. They are also additions for Skyrim to improve the urban landscape of the game.
I’ve scoured the web and tested quite a bit to put together this list of freebies, offering you a refreshed look with new city zones and buildings to explore.
If you’re stuck in vanilla and just not thrilled with the look, or if you simply wish to have new locations in your Skyrim experience, well you’ve come to the right corner of the Internet my friend.
This mod, also known as “Becoming a Lord”, allows you to claim a piece of land in Skyrim and start building your own city.
As the creator of the mod suggests, you shouldn’t expect too much with Build Your City. As of this writing its in Alpha stages.
However, he doesn’t seem to be working on tons of new updates so I’ve included on my list on its current state.
The mod does allow you to place a bunch of new buildings and seems to be working quite well, even for an “alpha” build. I haven’t encountered any game-breaking bugs so far!
The only issues I’ve seen are clipping issues, but that’s to be expected in a game where construction is not meant to be a vanilla option.
In a region as cold as Skyrim, it would make sense for Bathhouses to exist so people can all clean themselves in a relatively hotter environment.
Bathhouses were actually pretty common back in the days of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, which also resemble the age upon which The Elder Scrolls seems to be based around.
All of the bathhouses added with this mod are as lore-friendly as possible, as they’ve been incorporated into most of the major cities in Northern Skyrim.
Skyrim Radioactive is a massive project that aims to reshape key aspects of the game like the interiors of houses, some of the game’s most important dungeons, and even the way some NPCs look.
The mod’s name is Skyrim Radioactive, but there isn’t anything nuclear or non-lore friendly about this project.
A bit puzzling, but still a really cool add-on nonetheless.
Installing this mod will let you rediscover many areas which you were already familiar with, giving you a plethora of new things to learn about Skyrim!
I know the name of this mod looks a bit weird. My grammar’s not off – that’s just the way it’s named. Don’t shoot the messenger here since it’s actually a really cool mod.
“Holds” has one clear objective: making each settlement feel completely unique from the rest.
As such, you will find exclusive clothing added to some of the game’s towns. Along with exclusive NPCs and even books relevant to the people of each region of Skyrim can also be found.
It might not be as much of an overhaul as other mods on this list. But sometimes life is about the little things.
This mod takes care of adding them perfectly while still feeling lore-friendly.
BluePianoTwo is one of the better-known names in the Skyrim community.
He has been creating some of the best city overhauls that exist to date, most of which are called “Dawn of [Enter City Name Here]”.
Dawn of Skyrim, however, is a compilation of all of his creations packed into a single file for your downloading comfort.
Th ismod makes most of the cities in the game look way better than they do in the base game. This is both a re-styling and an expansion of those cities by adding lots of new goodies too.
The best thing about this mod is that it doesn’t take much of a toll on your computer’s performance, something that most other city mods fail to be concerned over.
All towns and villages in Skyrim have always had the same feel to them; it’s easy to tell just how similar they all look if you’ve played Skyrim for more than 20 minutes in your life.
This mod aims to give all town buildings and villages new textures so they feel truly unique.
It affects all of the small towns and villages in Skyrim, so you’ll have plenty of exploring to do once you’ve installed it.
Plus it’s easy to uninstall if you ever want to go back to vanilla.
If you’re looking to install this bad boy, I would suggest not to touch any of the overhauls that I’ve mentioned on this list so far.
This one reworks all of the major cities and improves them massively. So it’s not exactly compatible with any other mod that deals with city shape or design (or it may be, test at your own risk).
JK’s Skyrim is one of the best city overhauls for the game.
And I fully recommend that you check it out if you’re looking for a Skyrim experience that feels truly fresh.
I have to admit that picking a single city overhaul as the winner was a difficult task, but Expanded Towns and Cities does it well.
This overhaul adds improvements that range from subtle to highly noticeable, adding a fresh look to Skyrim that surpasses that of basically every other mod on this list.
Open Cities Skyrim makes all of the cities part of the game-world, which means that you won’t have to deal with annoying loading screens while playing.
I never thought I’d see the day.
With this installed you’ll be able to ride your horse around the cities in base-game Skyrim. What a life!
Born in the first half of the 90s, video games have been a part of my life ever since I was introduced to Age of Empires I by my dad. I'm a Mass Communications graduate with a specialization in Marketing, as well as a hardcore gamer. My aim is to bring you quality content so you can get the best out of your games and take your experience to the next level!
