The Best Interface Mods for Skyrim

Bethesda Game Studios / Sarah Arnold

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Human Made

Penned by Sarah Arnold

Sarah loves RPGs, sandboxes, and sims. She's played every expansion of World of Warcraft and WoW Classic and spent hundreds of hours modding and playing Bethesda games.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

When The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released in 2011 it was a groundbreaking RPG. Its sleek, modern, black-and-white UI was a huge leap forward from the paper-and-ink look of Oblivion. But that was almost 13 years ago, and games have come a long way since then, including their interfaces. Moreover, Skyrim‘s menus were designed with consoles in mind, which leaves them feeling a bit simple and limited on a mouse and keyboard. That’s where mods come in! I’ve compiled a list of the best interface mods for Skyrim. The mods below aren’t in any particular order.

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SkyUI

If you’ve ever modded Skyrim at all, you’ve probably heard of SkyUI. This UI overhaul has been around since the very earliest days of the game’s lifespan, even before modders had access to the Creation Kit. It adds a great deal of detail and functionality to just about every menu in the game.

Moreover, this mod is required by most of the other mods in this list. Many other types of mods can also take advantage of SkyUI’s Mod Configuration Menu. Do yourself a favor and give it a try. You’ll never want to go back to those clunky old vanilla menus.

Download: Nexus Mods, Steam

RaceMenu

Here’s a mod that’s been around for almost as long as SkyUI and is still receiving regular updates. RaceMenu alters the character creation menu in a way very similar to what SkyUI does for every other menu in the game.

If you spend as much time in character creation as I do, you’ll definitely want to have this installed. In addition to offering a cleaner, more detailed interface, this mod also adds tons of options for tweaking your character’s appearance.

Download: Nexus Mods

Immersive HUD

This may actually be the oldest mod on this list, released a few days before SkyUI but still very relevant. It very simply allows you to hide your HUD elements so you have a clear view of Skyrim’s beautiful landscape.

The mod allows you to toggle the compass with a hotkey and set your crosshair to only show in certain conditions. Your health, magicka, and stamina bars will also fade more quickly when they reach 100%. You can even hide the sneak meter if you like.

Download: Nexus Mods, Steam

Dear Diary Dark Mode

There are a few total interface replacers available for Skyrim that attempt to reskin every UI element in the game. This one is a refinement of the very popular Dear Diary mod, which gives the menus a paper-and-ink look reminiscent of Oblivion‘s.

Dear Diary Dark Mode does something a little different than its predecessor, keeping the darker color scheme of the vanilla menus but adding some Dark Souls style details that make them look a lot more polished and stylized. As a bonus, this mod has compatibility patches available for pretty much everything else on this list.

Download: Nexus Mods

TrueHUD

TrueHUD is a standalone mod that started out as part of the True Directional Movement mod, and they still pair together very well, but you can also use TrueHUD by itself. It adds some new elements to your HUD, including actor info bars that float above the heads of enemies and teammates and large boss bars that appear at the top of the screen when you’re fighting certain enemies.

This mod is both modular and customizable, so you can pick and choose the features you like and adjust them to your preferences. It also has broad compatibility support, and if you have Dear Diary Dark Mode, TrueHUD will be skinned to match the rest of your UI.

Download: Nexus Mods

Navigation Compass Overhaul

The Navigation Compass Overhaul mod adds some modern features to the game’s compass that were inspired by newer games like Horizon Zero Dawn. With this mod you’ll be able to see the name of each marker’s location and its distance, including its height differential.

Perhaps the coolest feature of this mod is the new quest widget that can show quest information directly on your HUD, without having to open any menus.

Download: Nexus Mods

Skyrim Character Sheet

One menu that always seemed like it was missing from Skyrim was a screen where you could see all of your current character’s stats and info. After all, a character sheet is a pretty standard feature in most RPGs. Enter the Skyrim Character Sheet mod, which adds exactly that.

It’s useful for keeping track of things like your faction ranks and thaneships as well as seeing stats that you can’t normally see in the game, such as your movement speed, noise level, and stagger rate.

Download: Nexus Mods

MoreHUD

As the name implies, the MoreHUD mod adds more info to your HUD. With this mod installed, hovering over an item in the world will show you all of the stats and info you’d be able to see if it was in your inventory. You can see if you’ve already read a book or not, what effects an alchemy ingredient has, and if that sword is better or worse than the one you have equipped.

MoreHUD has a sibling in the form of MoreHUD Inventory, which add some extra info to items in your inventory as well.

Download: Nexus Mods

Quick Loot RE

Looting containers and corpses in vanilla Skyrim is a little clunky and tedious. You have to interact with every container to open the inventory menu before you can see what’s inside. Quick Loot RE brings the loot system from Fallout 4 into the game, letting you see what’s in any container simply by hovering over it.

You’ll really appreciate this mod when you run into a bunch of barrels or crates that each have 1 vegetable inside, as it will spare you the process of checking each one “just in case.” There’s also a little added immersion since the game no longer pauses while you rifle through the pockets of your victims.

Download: Nexus Mods

Easy Wheel Menu II

If you add a lot of mods to your game, you may find that your menus become cluttered with new spells and powers which don’t really make sense in your magic menu, but don’t have anywhere else to go. Well, now they do!

Easy Wheel Menu allows you to configure and hotkey multiple pop-up menus where you can organize all of those new abilities. It really goes a long way to making those mods feel more like a natural part of the game.

Download: Nexus Mods