There’s nothing quite as satisfying as making an example of your enemies with a flashy killmove in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
And mods can make it even better.
Mods keep Skyrim going strong after all these years, and improving combat has been one of the main concerns of the modding community since the very beginning.
Once you’ve gotten better balance and combat animations, these killmove-enhancing mods will be the icing on the cake.
Killmoves are an exciting way to end a fight – but what goes around comes around.
If you’re playing a squishy character like a mage or a rogue, that can mean getting 1hko’d by anyone carrying a 2-handed weapon in gruesome, humiliating ways.
With No Killmoves by DavidSid, you can remove killmoves entirely. This protects your honor, and sometimes even your life, from cheap 1hko’s from over-leveled foes.
This applies to kill cams generated by melee weapons, ranged weapons, spells, and even dragons.
Once you’ve come to terms with getting kill cam’d and decided to “git gud,” we can move on to more exciting mods like Heartbreaker.
This add-on doesn’t only add a new kill cam but a new finisher system altogether.
Enemies that become incapacitated in combat can now be put out of their misery in the most barbaric way: tearing out their hearts in one brutal move.
The mod even lets you customize your cardiac removal by adding different glows to your hand or only allowing the move to be used on specific enemies, such as Briar Hearts.
Foes killed this way will have a gaping hole in their chest, adding to the gruesomeness.
One of the main reasons to mod your game is to get more control over the details.
If you want more control over your kill cam, Simple Overwhelming Slaying – Cinematic Kills is the mod for you.
This add-on lets you customize your kill cam in-depth. You get to choose when it triggers, what visual effects are applied, whether it’s in slow-mo or not, and so on.
This isn’t just a “killmove” mod, but something that can make even regular kills look incredibly badass.
VioLens is considered by many to be one of the most essential Skyrim mods.
It allows you to fully control melee and ranged killmoves. This includes choosing which animations play depending on your weapon and what will trigger it.
Some of my favorite tweaks include deactivating decapitations with blunt weapons or dramatically increasing my ranged killmove chance against dragons for epic kills.
In addition, it’s compatible with any custom killmove mods you might come across in the future.
Nelson Chitty is a Venezuelan expat living in Argentina. He’s a writer and translator passionate about history and foreign cultures. His ideal weekend is spent between leisurely playing games of Civilization VI and looking for the next seinen anime to marathon.
