While improving PC and console hardware performance has allowed game developers to create incredibly new experiences, it’s also done something equally as important. It’s allowed modders to continued to improveThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, too. Case in point a recently updated mod named “Origins of Forest - 3D Forest Grass” forSkyrim, a 3D grass mod that’s intended to “reflect the dynamic growth of a great forest.” It fillsSkyrim’s woodland areas with gorgeous green foliage.
The intention of the Origins of Forest 3D grass mod is tobetter represent the wilderness ofSkyrimin a way that the game doesn’t, due in part to performance issues. Imagine going into the untamed wilderness and having bare ground and clear paths everywhere. Origins of Forest fills those spaces with grass, shrubbery, and brush that fills the space from the player’s feed to their waist and higher. It genuinely makes exploringSkyrimfeel like a completely different game.
RELATED:Skyrim Mod Skywind is Probably Still a Ways Off
Origins of Forest doesn’t accomplish its task all on its own, however. It’s intended to be paired with another key mod named The Jedi Trees. If Origins of Forest improves foliage at player height, The Jedi Trees handles everything that grows taller. Themod replaces the treesinSkyrimwith improved trees pulled from Unity’s library of free tree assets. However, since that breaks Unity’s licensing agreement, asSkyrimand its mods aren’t Unity projects.
Regardless, Origins of Forest paired with The Jedi Trees are intended to give a visual upgrade to the wilderness ofThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. They’re also supposed to do so without too much of aperformance hit on PCs. Some mod users say they lost a handful of frames-per-second turning on the mod, but that’s a fairly reasonable trade for a transformative mod.
Origins of Forest - 3D Forest Grass isn’t a new release. It’s been available since February, at the very least. The new version of the Origins of Forest mod is what developer forbeatn describes as a “Quick and Dirty Backmod,” meaning it’s now designed to run on older versions ofSkyrimand not just theSpecial Edition. It also means that the modder is asking for feedback to correct potential errors.
It just goes to show that sometimes even smaller mods can make hugely meaningful improvements to games even as big asSkyrim. Not to mention that even decade-old games likeSkyrimcan still be improved upon, just with adedicated modding community.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis available now on PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S support planned for November 11.
