Skyrim mods are a wonderful thing. The community has fallen so in love with the game and world of Tamriel that they've put hundreds of hours into creating all manner of new content for the game.
Whether you're looking for the yassification of Riften or an entire festive Skyrim adventure, or anything in between, the Skyrim modding community has your back with its delightful tidbits.
And now, you can pretend Skyrim's combat is good! Imagine, simply holding down the block button not being enough to carry you through the entire game. A wild thought, but one that modder machinegun420 has made a reality.
Curved. Swords.
The mod is called Skyrim Directional Combat, and it revolutionises 1v1 encounters in the game. It offers four-direction combat, letting you properly lock swords with an enemy instead of just holding block or rolling around like you do in a lot of modern RPGs.
It's a huge change to the combat system in Skyrim machinegod420 describes as "Meh," and forces you to really focus on those battles. To successfully block an attack, you have to move your weapon in the same direction as the enemy, so it'll become vital to keep an eye on their movements. You can see a clip of the mod in action below, as Farkas parries and ripostes the Dragonborn's blade.
There is a whole host of requirements you'll need to install and get working to make sure this mod works, so make sure to follow the instructions closely. Also, the mod creator says it's important to install something that'll stop enemies swarming you like Wait Your Turn, otherwise you'll get bamboozled and killed in no time.
The amount of work that must have gone into this mod is staggering, so give it a try if you're into combat systems like Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Mount and Blade. Machinegun420 is even looking into adding 1vX capabilities, as well as future UI improvements, so this is far from the mod's final form.
While you wait, you could always have a look at some of our other Skyrim mod articles. We have coverage of everything from our coveted mod of the month list to mods challenging you to a no-hit Skyrim run, and even ones that add new followers - Arondir from Lord of the Rings is a personal favourite!