Taking my first strides in the breezy pastures of Ghost of Tsushima, I was reminded of the awe I felt playing Skyrim in 2011. Ghosts of Tsushima is a much newer and more technically impressive game, but the sense of vastness is an easy parallel.
Skyrim players who like Ghosts of Tsushima are in luck. With only a handful of mods, it is possible to partially recreate the medieval vibes of Tsushima’s open world right here in Tamriel. If the lore incompatibility questions do not bug you for this visual overhaul, here is a (relatively) quick and simple guide on how to introduce a little Ghost of Tsushima into your Skyrim.
For this modding guide, we will be using Skyrim: Special Edition. The latest version of the game, including those who own the Anniversary Edition, will work perfectly fine. If you are using an older Skyrim version such as 1.5.97, that will work too.
All of the mods listed here can be found on Nexusmods under the Skyrim Special Edition page.
10 Mods that will make your Skyrim resemble Ghosts of Tsushima
1) Tomato’s Complex Landscape Parallax AIO + Tomato’s Green Tundra Landscape Parallax
Skyrim to Ghosts of Tsuhima is a long visual mods journey, and the biggest gap to close is the landscape textures. Tomato’s Complex Landscape Parallax AIO is our pick, as it boasts a relatively vibrant departure from vanilla aesthetics. This relatively new set of terrain textures comes with its own Parallax meshes for a detailed, bumpy look.
While the AIO mod above covers all regions, we need to hand-pick greener landscapes for the Whiterun hold. Tomato’s Green Tundra Landscape Parallax is the perfect replacement from the same author.
2) Majestic Mountains Lightside
The craggy mountains surround the province of Skyrim from three sides. It would be a shame not to give it the next-gen treatment. For this purpose, we are going with the oldie but goldie Majestic Mountains. Grab the Majestic Mountains Lightside version from the main files, and you’re good to go.
During the installation, make sure to not pick the options that change the sun direction. This option has a known compatibility issue with ENB.
3) xLodGen
Since we modded the Skyrim tundra to be green like Ghost of Tsushima’s valleys, we need to change the LOD. You have to download xLODGen and run it once to generate good LOD transitions for those pastoral plains near Whiterun.
If xLODGen is too much hassle, you can also use AceeQ’s Green Tundra Grass & LOD (Bethesda.net), but it will not look as good.
4) Skoglendi – A Grass Mod (and some INI tweaks)
What is the signature thing about Ghost of Tsushima’s visuals? The idyllic grasslands that stretch throughout its horizons. Skoglendi – A Grass Mod is the closest you can get to that. Install the mod with complex grass, and no brown tundra add-on.
Once you are done, go to Skoglendi – A Grass Mod.ini, and add these values:
- [Display]
fWindGrassMultiplier=5
Skoglendi grass doesn’t move much by default, but this INI tweak will make your Skyrim grass mod as breezy as Ghost of Tsushima.
5) Origins of Forest, and Gonzh84’s Patch for Skoglendi
While Skoglendi takes care of the open areas, we also need a Skyrim mod to recreate the heavily overgrown woods in Ghost of Tsushima. Origins of Forest – 3D Forest Grass does exactly that. Thankfully, it is also compatible with Skoglendi if you grab Gonzh84’s patch for the two.
Also, grab ‘Origins of Forest for ENB Complex Grass’ from Skurkbro’s Complex Grass – The Official Patch Compendium. Make sure it loads below (overwrites) the Origins of Forest files from the original mod.
Alternatively, you can also use Vinland Grass Patch if you have a high-end GPU by today’s standards. This mod combo additionally requires Flora Orientalis and Folkvangr, but the result is the most Ghost of Tsushima-like grass setup one can produce.
6) Traverse The Ulvenwald
Skyrim’s pines work just fine in the Nordic look of the original. However, we are ditching those for a new tree mod with much denser Oak-strewn forests. Traverse The Ulvenwald massively overhauls the look of the trees in all of the holds, adding a host of new tree types including spruces, douglas firs, and oaks.
Part of the reason we use Traverse The Ulvenwald is for its detailed tree animations. There is still no full-body tree swaying, but this is as lively as it gets with a Skyrim tree mod.
7) Picta Realis
We are really cheating with the 10-mod limit on this list with this one, but it is more than worth it. Picta Realis comes with its own hard requirements that you should install. This includes EVLaS, as well as Vivid Weathers, which Picta Realis uses as an asset resource. Go through Picta Realis’ description tab thoroughly to set it up properly.
When you pick your ENB Helper version, take note of your Skyrim version and pick accordingly.
Finally, as this weather mod doubles as an ENB preset, you also need to grab ENB files from the official website, as well as Silent Horizons 2 – Shader Core. Place these in your main folder, where the Skyrim executable is located.
Finally, also grab dabiggieboss’ Picta Realis – Water for ENB Shades of Skyrim and Lux Patch. For your troubles, you get one of the best marvels of modern ENB in Skyrim – one that gets very close to the visual grandeur of Ghost of Tsushima’s day-night cycle.
8) Northern Roads
Ghosts of Tsushima’s isles are rustic and unkempt, something that Skyrim’s paved Imperial roads contradict. Lets take care of that with Northern Roads. This mod overhauls all roads and bridges to be subtle dirt trails. Numerous objects and decorative elements also dot the paths to keep things interesting along the way.
Get livelongapollo’s ‘Complex Parallax Texture for Northern Roads‘ to make the trail far more detailed and realistic.
Be warned that this mod alters a lot of overworld records. Get Northern Roads – Patches Compendium and Northern Roads Patch Collection for compatibility with some other mods from this list.
If you are using a giant Skyrim modlist, it might be more hassle-free to use cieme3387’s Real Dirt Roads. It’s not nearly as feature-rich as Northern Roads, though.
9) Water for ENB
Skyrim Special Edition improved the water shader, but it looks far too blocky by modern standards. Water for ENB is a one-and-done solution for this. We will be using the ‘Shades of Skyrim’ version when installing it, which will add some much-needed variance in water color and transparency depending on which body of water it is.
10) Lux, Lux Via, and Lux Orbis
We have ‘modernized’ Skyrim’s environments with an appropriately rustic next-gen, but now it’s time for the interiors. GGUNIT’s Lux is the premier interior lighting mod if you are going for a next-gen look. As an added advantage, Picta Realis is designed to work with it.
Since we are using Lux, also get Lux Via and Lux Orbis from the same author to complete the picture. You will also need to patch it with Northern Roads, so run the Northern Roads Patch Collection wizard after this.
With all of these mods together, you will have some semblance of the environments and visual ambience of Ghosts of Tsushima in your Skyrim. Note that this modlist requires a beefy rig to run – and you might need a RTX 3080 or better to get playable FPS with it.
