Original Skyrim saves with mods won’t work with the Special Edition

Skyrim: The Special Edition is out today, allowing you to lose your very real life to the almost endless adventures Bethesda first launched nearly five years ago. Love or hate it, Skyrim was a gaming phenomenon. A game that people to this day still dabble with heavily, especially so in the modding community. But if you’re deeply invested into mods and you’re hoping the transition to this new Special Edition will be smooth, I’ve got some bad news for you.

Bethesda has confirmed (via PCGamer) that old Skyrim saves with mods will likely not work with the new Special Edition which launches today. The issues come in with the save not immediately being able to find the mod content in the new edition, which might need some tweaking from the community to get up and running. Bethesda advises players to use a fresh save or one without any mods attached, should you wish to seamlessly continue progress.

“Only use original saves that have never been used with mods. Do not use your original saved game if this error appears when you load it in Skyrim Special Edition: This save relies on content that is no longer present.”

Dave Talamas, Community Manager of Nexus Mods, also expressed doubt over whether saves with mods would ever work, but did explain that some might be able to get through.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t had enough internal testing to give you a definitive answer on modded save file compatibility. According to our community of mod authors however, the general consensus regarding compatibility of modded saves is a resounding ‘no.’ Though there is a remote chance that very particular save files which only depend on mods which have a SSE equivalent installed may work, this will not be relevant to the vast majority of mod users because their modded files will have one or more dependencies with a currently incompatible mod.

“Our advice for mod users is to expect to start fresh when it comes to playing SSE.”

Bummer, especially if the only save you have are swimming deep in the mod ocean. But considering these are two entirely separate games, there’s really no one to fault here. But it does give you an extra reason to embark on a fresh, new journey. Just warn your family and children before you do.

Last Updated: October 28, 2016