All great news, but will current mods become incompatible with the Special Edition? if so, how hard will it be to convert old mods to Special Edition?

If DX11 is used as the new API, which type of mods would become incompatible? Such as New Races, Shader Based mods (Realistic Water2, PureWaters, BetterDynamic Snow), Followers, Weapons/Armors, would be good to know in advance what type of mods likely need to be updated.

what about CK will there be a separate CK for special edition ??

I'm just wondering if mod devs will move to new version or stay with Legendary Edition

I'd keep mine for Legendary Edition, as one's a mod for a mod. From a compatibility perspective, I'd develop one I've got in mind for the Special Edition to avoid compatbility issues with different DLC combinations.

SKSE will need to be recompiled for 64bit, goodness knows how long that will take as they'll have to find all the entry points in the code all over again. Then again maybe they have programs that can trawl the code automatically, who knows. Either way until its released anything requiring it isn't going to function correctly. Anything shander based is unlikely to function correctly from the video they posted it looks like updated shaders and god rays likely requiring Gameworks as per FO4, not a fan of that as it kills framerates unless you turn it off/down heavily.

What interests me is if I understand this right do we finally get a DX11 capable engine out of this? With a vastly increased number of draw calls and a much higher polygon count? Or am I being hopelessy optimistic?

No one knows for sure, there are people crying that using DX11 will break all the custom Textures and Meshes such as Retextures and all the Custom Bodies, i am not so sure... Pete already answered to some random guy that old Mods will "Pretty Much Work" in the Special Edition.


I think that as long as they don`t really use use any new techniques for the Pixel/Textures Shaders in DX11 and only use it to improve performance... but to be honest i really don`t know, maybe someone more informed can shed some light in this manner. But the whining is extremely annoying, if people are too scared to move on they may as well just stick to the old version.

I love the games that beth releases, but I gotta be honest, I'm kinda pissed that theyre releasing something like this instead of releasing a new expansion or some form of new content.. they have to be aware of how many mods have been released for skyrim. I personally dont care about HD remasters of anything, whenever i see that it just seems like some relatively quick money making scheme. Final Fantasy X hd remaster... (buy the same game again) Resident evil HD remaster... Re-release, remaster HD for another console (buy the same game over again).

Of course, I'm saying this assuming that this new edition of skyrim wont be compatible with something... for all i know it could be and I'm upset over nothing.... but still wish I heard New Expansion!! instead of HD remaster or whatever.

I don't understand posts like this and I think you are missing the value of 64 bit.


Also, it's free for PC players, so that's not a moneymaking scheme, and console players get tons of new content through mods.


Finally, it's a seperate app in Steam, so you can continue playing your old 32 bit version with all your old mods if you want to.


All in all its a good deal for everyone, even without taking the graphical upgrades into consideration.

I think you do understand. I saw this post before I looked into the details. I know this is the first time this has happened in the history of human conversation.