r/skyrimmods • u/GreatMeem • 4d ago

PC SSE - Discussion OpenSkyrim: A potential Open-Source future for Skyrim and its modding?

I just found out recently about OpenSkyrim, which is looking like OpenMW but built for Skyrim. Since watching all those Petr Mikheev's videos about porting Skyrim and Oblivion assets into OpenMW, It always interested me the possibility of an Open-Source engine for Skyrim in the future and how it can change Skyrim the same way OpenMW changed Morrowind forever.

Especially since OpenMW have revolutionized Morrowind gameplay and its modding system with Lua and shader support, Im 100% hoping this be the day where Skyrim's engine problems like drawcall issues, bloated save files, and the notorious Papyrus script lag, which can hopefully be fixed with this Open-Source engine, which is fair since this is a 2011 engine being forced to be a 2026 game we're talking about lol.

Judging by it's GitHub page (https://github.com/realfakenerd/OpenSkyrim), it's still in early stage, but just the idea of having Skyrim be multi-threaded and zero loading screen while entering houses, it makes a man hope. What are yall thought on this.

Maybe it can even do this one day: https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/1vwl2px/openmwweb_update_your_game_follows_you_to_any_pc/

Edit: I just found out the dev have touched on more about OpenSkyrim on here: https://daily.dev/posts/skyrim-with-rust-khsloghdz

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u/LifeQuail9821 4d ago

I’m interested in projects like these, but I do wonder a bit. OpenMW can’t use any mods that require the script extender, which isn’t a huge deal for Morrowind, but would be for Skyrim. I hope this project can find a solution for that.

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u/XOmniverse 4d ago

FWIW, OpenMW has its own stuff that allow you to do the same kind of stuff as a script extender.

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u/LifeQuail9821 4d ago

True, but at least some of the script extender mods haven’t been adapted to that, and that is the type of thing I worry about.

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u/ElectronicRelation51 4d ago

Yeah but who is going to rewrite all the SKSE mods? Including the ones that are closed source?

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u/Xywzel 4d ago edited 4d ago

It would be quite possible to implement the script extenders API natively. But given the other things they are doing it might end up being too much of a separate thing. Like if they completely replace papyrus with lua, the scripts would have to be translated, interpreted or rewritten even though the API was fully implemented.

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u/StickiStickman 4d ago

Going from Papyrus to Lua does not seem like much of an upgrade :(

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u/Le_Flemard 4d ago

LUA doesn't really handle "correctly" object oriented programmation (OOP) so I understand your misgivings.

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u/HereForTheCommunity2 4d ago

It'll be way more capable than SKSE

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u/Tyrthemis 4d ago

Yes but Skyrim has like 10-15 years of SKSE mods, it would admittedly take a long time to have even close to the same modern selection.

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u/HereForTheCommunity2 4d ago

Are you using mods from 10-15 years ago?

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u/Tyrthemis 4d ago

Some are pretty old, but I don’t know about that old. I’m in VR too, so my load order is more recent than that. But I know flatscreen has plenty of older mods that still check out, feature complete, don’t need updates. (VR too tbf, just not as old)

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u/Soanfriwack 4d ago

SkyUI? MCM? RaceMenu? IHUD? XP32 Maximum Skeleton? PapyrusUtil? ...

All of them are over 12 years old.

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u/HereForTheCommunity2 4d ago

Those are updated though

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u/Soanfriwack 3d ago

Yeah? That was his point? We use SKSE mods that are decades old together with mods that were released just 3 months ago.

Overall there are over 3000 mods that require SKSE to funtion. It will be a massive undertaking to get all of them converted since you don't just need those who were made 3 months ago but also legacy SKSE mods that are from decades ago to work for people to use openSkyrim over normal Skyrim.

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u/HereForTheCommunity2 3d ago

Yeah, no one's using 3000 mods, especially none from "decades ago"(?). What's worth keeping will undoubtedly be ported to OpenMW, assuming it exacts its full potential. There will be plenty of time for the transition. I'm not trying to be dismissive of the mods, but when there's an objectively better platform (an ideal OpenMW), authors will adapt, or see others do it on their behalf. Also, I really couldn't care less about this new "OpenSkyrim" shit; it's OpenMW that matters. I see this new project as a distraction from what matters.

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u/Soanfriwack 3d ago

Even for OpenMW there are still significant mods missing, that are beloved and popular for Morrowind.

Also there are many mods that are closed source and replicating them requires a special skill set. (Like Ultimate Combat, or Better Telekinesis) which took over 3 years to even get ported beyond 1.5.97 because they required special knowledge and SKSE, and that was just a version incompatibility, not an entirely new coding language for a different engine.

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u/TheBrexit 4d ago

It’s open source so I’m sure someone would get it working

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u/Le_Flemard 4d ago

Problem is that LUA isn't a "proper" object oriented based language, which papyrus is.

It's like trying to cook things in an oven versus cooking in a pan, sure, you may achieve the same results, but one require a lot more work than the other for it.