The Elder Scrolls: Skyblivion

The Elder Scrolls: Skyblivion is an ambitious modification (so-called total conversion) for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition game. The mod transfers all the content of the fourth installment of The Elder Scrolls series to the engine of the fifth installment of the series.

Behind the creation of Skyblivion is the TESRenewal team, which did all the work for free and also made its creation available for free. At the same time, this is not the only mod of its kind created by this team - in parallel there were created their projects The Elder Scrolls: Skywind (transferring the content of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to the Skyrim engine) and The Elder Scrolls: Morroblivion (transferring Morrowind to the Oblivion engine).

Project history

Work on The Elder Scrolls: Skyblivion began in 2012, when a programmer known as Zilav prepared its tech demo. In time, he was joined by a second author, Monocleus (formerly known as Ormin). After two years, the duo managed to develop a stable, though still very early, version of the project, and then set off with its promotional campaign. Thanks to this, over time other people began to join in, who expressed their willingness to help complete it.

Although the release of Skyblivion was a song of the distant future, work progressed year by year. By January 2025, all the major mechanics were in place, and the game world design was 93 percent complete. The only thing left for the developers to do at that time was to fill in the last "white spot" on the map of Cyrodiil, as well as add data on the terrain on which NPCs can move (navmesh).

Skyblivion vs. Oblivion and Skyrim - differences

The most important goal for the creators of The Elder Scrolls: Skyblivionproject was to reconstruct the basic version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For this reason, the modification does not introduce too many new elements (which does not mean, however, that we will not see them at all). In addition, it is hard to find content from the Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles expansions (although there was a possibility that such content would be added after the release).

Apart from the most obvious difference, i.e. the visuals (the mod uses 4K textures and models of better quality "than those from the basic version of Skyrim"), TESRenewal stands out from the original Oblivion mainly due to a completely redesigned user interface. In addition, the creators managed to transfer the mechanics of creating character classes (Create-A-Class) into their project. However, the modders encountered significant problems with the implementation of the spell-creation system known from the original, which made its presence in Skyblivion questionable.

In addition, this modification includes all quests and enemies from the basic Oblivion; the authors did not fail to add some new quests and additional enemies. The developers have also restored some of the content cut from the original game, such as the lost city of Sutch, located between Anvil and Kvatch, which has been expanded.

Technical issues

The Elder Scrolls: Skyblivion requires The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition Deluxe and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition.