Summary
A modder has created a series of mods that restores a huge amount of cut content toThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. TheSkyrimmods bring back NPCs, housing items, objects, and areas that were, for whatever reason, removed from the base game before release.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis one of the most heavily modded games around. ThebestSkyrimmodsdo everything from fixing some of the game’s notorious bugs and technical faults to adding new quests, NPCs, items, and gameplay mechanics. Even without mods, the game remains a massive open-world RPG, with hundreds of hours of content keeping players engaged even years after its original release.
If the latest efforts of modder Unorthodogg are anything to go by, there could have been even more content in the base release ofSkyrim. In July 2024, Unorthodogg released the first nine parts of their “Skyrim Re-Cut” mod series toNexus Mods. With 13 planned installments in total, the mods restore many items, NPCs,and even locations that were removed by Bethesda during the game’s development.
Skyrim Mod Series Restores Content Cut
Unorthodogg’s mod series is organized by region, such as the areas ofSkyrim’s game world that contain Whiterun, Solitude, Morthal, Markarth, and more. The series is also mainly focused on restoring items, locations, NPCs, and structures that were determined to have been removed by Bethesda during development, rather than adding entirely new things. Quest lines and occurrences like aSkyrimmission involving Jarl Balgruufthat was cut from the game appear to be out of the mod series' scope for now.
The restoration significantly expands the scale and scope of theSkyrimbase game, often adding structures and NPCs to areas ofSkyrimthat make the world feel more lived-in. For example, Nazeem, one of theleast popular characters inSkyrim, originally did not have his own house, despite carrying the key to it and bragging constantly about his status. The mod restores the house, called Wintersand Manor, to Whiterun.
In an FAQ on the mod description page, Unorthodogg acknowledged that other “cut content"Skyrimmods exist that restore items removed from the game, including the aforementioned Wintersand Manor. However, they said that to their knowledge, no other cut content restoration quite matches the scale of the Skyrim Re-Cut project. Unorthodogg claims to have added “almost everything” they could find that wasn’t broken outright or heavily reliant on a removed quest. That includes the cut town of Granite Hill, which connects Whiterun to thescenic Falkreath Hold. On that merit, the project’s centralization of a large variety of content restorations is worth considering for the busySkyrimplayer.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
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