Should You Buy Skyrim Legendary Edition or Special Edition? A Definitive Guide
So, you’re itching to dive into the vast and captivating world of Skyrim, but you’re faced with a choice: Legendary Edition or Special Edition? As a seasoned adventurer and scholar of Tamriel, I’m here to guide you through this crucial decision. The short answer? Unless you have a very specific reason to choose otherwise, you should buy Skyrim Special Edition. Let’s delve into why.
The Key Differences Explained
While both editions offer the core Skyrim experience, significant technical improvements and modding support differences separate them. The Special Edition is the clear winner for most players.
Architecture and Performance: The 64-bit Advantage
The most significant difference lies in the game’s architecture. Skyrim Legendary Edition runs on a 32-bit engine. This limits the amount of memory the game can access, leading to instability, crashes, and performance issues, especially when heavily modded.
Skyrim Special Edition, on the other hand, boasts a 64-bit engine. This allows it to utilize significantly more memory, resulting in a much more stable and smoother experience. This increased stability is particularly crucial if you plan to mod the game extensively.
Graphics and Visual Enhancements
Special Edition also features graphical improvements over the Legendary Edition. These include:
- Remastered art and effects: Textures are sharper, lighting is more dynamic, and overall visual fidelity is enhanced.
- Volumetric lighting: Godrays streaming through trees and dungeons add a stunning atmospheric depth.
- New snow shaders: Snow looks more realistic and reacts dynamically to the environment.
While these improvements aren’t groundbreaking, they contribute to a more immersive and visually pleasing experience.
Modding: Where the Community Resides
The modding community has largely shifted its focus to Special Edition. While Legendary Edition once boasted a vast library of mods, the community is actively porting and creating new content for Special Edition due to its superior stability and performance.
This means you’ll find more up-to-date mods, better support, and a larger community creating content for Special Edition. Attempting to extensively mod Legendary Edition is a risky endeavor that will likely lead to save corruption and crashes.
Content: What You Get
Both Legendary Edition and Special Edition include the base game and all three official DLCs: Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn. The difference comes with the Anniversary Edition, which is an optional upgrade for Special Edition.
The Anniversary Edition includes a plethora of Creation Club content, which are Bethesda-endorsed mods. This adds a significant amount of new quests, items, and features to the game.
Why Choose Special Edition? A Summary
- Stability: The 64-bit engine provides a significantly more stable experience, especially with mods.
- Performance: Enjoy smoother gameplay and better performance overall.
- Graphics: Visual enhancements create a more immersive world.
- Modding: The modding community has largely migrated to Special Edition.
- Anniversary Edition Option: The option to upgrade to the Anniversary Edition for even more content.
When Might Legendary Edition Be Considered?
While Special Edition is the clear winner for most players, there are a few niche cases where Legendary Edition might be considered:
- Extremely low-end hardware: If you’re playing on a very old or weak computer, Legendary Edition might be the only version that runs acceptably.
- Nostalgia and a specific mod: If you’re attached to a specific mod that hasn’t been ported to Special Edition and you’re willing to deal with the instability, Legendary Edition might be an option.
- Price: Although rare, if you find it drastically cheaper than Special Edition, it might be considered.
The Verdict
For the vast majority of players, Skyrim Special Edition is the superior choice. Its enhanced stability, improved graphics, and thriving modding community make it the definitive way to experience the world of Tamriel. Consider the Anniversary Edition upgrade for even more content.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What exactly is the difference between Skyrim Special Edition and Anniversary Edition?
Skyrim Special Edition is a remastered version of the original Skyrim game with improved graphics and stability. It also includes all three DLC expansions: Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn. Skyrim Anniversary Edition builds upon the Special Edition by adding a large collection of Creation Club content. This content includes new quests, items, armor, weapons, and more, essentially providing a wealth of additional content crafted by Bethesda and approved creators.
2. Is Skyrim Special Edition worth it without mods?
Yes! While modding enhances the experience, Skyrim Special Edition is still a fantastic game on its own. The base game offers hundreds of hours of gameplay, and the improved graphics and stability over Legendary Edition make it a more enjoyable experience. The three included DLCs add even more content to explore.
3. Can I upgrade Skyrim Legendary Edition to Special Edition?
No, Special Edition is considered a separate game, not an upgrade. You would need to purchase Special Edition separately, even if you already own Legendary Edition. There’s no discount for owning the original version.
4. Do I need to buy Skyrim Anniversary Edition if I have Special Edition?
No, you don’t need to. The Anniversary Edition is an optional upgrade that adds the Creation Club content. If you’re happy with the content included in Special Edition, you don’t need to upgrade.
5. Is Skyrim Legendary Edition better than Special Edition for modding?
Absolutely not. While Legendary Edition once had a larger modding community, the vast majority of modders have moved to Special Edition. Special Edition’s 64-bit architecture is far more stable and can handle more complex mods without crashing.
6. Will my old Skyrim mods work on Special Edition?
Some may, but not all. Many mods need to be ported or updated to work with Special Edition. Check the mod’s page on the Nexus Mods website to see if a Special Edition version is available.
7. Does Skyrim Special Edition have all DLC?
Yes, Skyrim Special Edition includes all three official DLC expansions: Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn.
8. Is Skyrim Anniversary Edition worth it if you have Special Edition?
Whether it’s “worth it” is subjective and depends on your interest in the Creation Club content and how much you want to pay. If you enjoy adding new quests, items, and features to your game, then the Anniversary Edition is a good value. However, many PC players prefer to install their own mods instead of using the Creation Club content, so it might not be worth it for everyone.
9. How old is Skyrim Legendary Edition?
Skyrim Legendary Edition was released on June 4, 2013.
10. Is Skyrim Legendary hard?
The difficulty of Skyrim depends on the difficulty setting you choose. On “Legendary” difficulty, the game is indeed very challenging. Enemies are much stronger, and you take significantly more damage. Even basic enemies can kill you quickly.
11. What does Skyrim Legendary Edition do?
The Legendary Edition includes the base game and all three DLCs (Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn). It also introduced features like combat cameras, mounted combat, the Legendary difficulty mode, and Legendary skills, allowing you to reset skills back to 15 after reaching level 100.
12. Is it harder to level up on legendary Skyrim?
The difficulty setting and Legendary skills work independently from one another. Legendary difficulty affects combat, not leveling speed. Making skills Legendary allows you to level infinitely.
13. Why upgrade to legendary Skyrim skills?
The main benefit to Legendary Skills is that it removes the level cap and allows players to theoretically gain as many Perk Points as they like, providing you level up the skills back to 100.
14. What happens when you upgrade to legendary Skyrim skill?
Making a skill Legendary resets it to 15 and refunds all perk points spent in that skill tree. This allows you to level up the skill again, earning more character levels and perk points.
15. Which Skyrim has the most mods?
While the Legendary Edition technically still has more total mods available, the vast majority of active mod developers are now focused on Special Edition. Most of the popular and high-quality mods have been ported to Special Edition, making it the clear winner in terms of active and well-supported mods.