Modders have put an awful lot of effort into making sure Skyrim has continually evolved and expanded in the years since it was first released into the world.
Many have focused on changing the game by adding interesting custom followers, Elden Ring-style headwear, and multiplayer functionality to it, with a few even going as far as replacing Meridia’s beacon with some bacon or making Nazeem look beautiful.
If you’re a player who spends more time lurking in the shadows of dungeons, stealthily hunting prey in the wilds or stealing from poor NPCs than you do redecorating your cosy home of choice, a recently released mod might be worth taking a look at.
Feel like your sneaky Skyrim character needs some new moves to help them stay unseen?
The mod in question is called ‘Sneak Behavior Extensions- True Prone System (MGSV Style Crawling - Dives - Rolls)’, and is the work of modder Monitor144hz. Some of their previous projects have added masks and smoke bombs to the arsenals of Skyrim’s shifty saboteurs and stopped enemies from unfairly ambushing you in groups.
This time, they’ve decided to create some new custom animations for the game, which will allow your character to stealthily crawl, dive and roll a bit like Metal Gear Solid V’s Venom Snake in order to remain undetected while sneaking up on enemies.
All of these manoeuvres are unleashed from a brand new prone stance activated via holding down the shift key while you’re crouching, which will cause your character to press their body to the ground and crawl along in a manner that muffles nearly all of their movement sounds and makes them 50% harder to detect.
The downsides of this are that they’ll move much more slowly than they do in the default crouch stance and can’t use any weapons while they’re lying prone, balancing its effectiveness and ensuring you won’t want to spend the entire game shuffling through the dirt on your belly.
If you do end up being spotted by an enemy at an inopportune moment, swift horizontal rolls activated by pressing shift in addition to A or D and the ability to return to your feet by holding shift again mean that you shouldn’t just be a sitting duck provided there’s cover nearby to dart behind or you’re quick enough to recognise the situation and ready yourself for regular combat.
Before you can create nightmares for your Dragonborn’s dry cleaner by shuffling through the undergrowth, you’ll first need to grab Jarari’s ‘Dynamic Key Action Framework NG’, DTry’s ‘Payload Interpreter’, Alexsylex’s ‘Animation Motion Revolution’ and Shikyokira’s ‘Project New Reign - Nemesis Unlimited Behavior Engine’.
Regardless of whether you’re now becoming very intimate with Tamriel’s floors, make sure to follow us for more updates on The Elder Scrolls 6 and the interesting world of Skyrim modding. You can also check out our mods of the month for February 2023.