Skyrim Mod Gives you Google Earth Level Zoom

Skyrim might not even be a week old yet, but that hasn’t stopped the modding community from getting down to work improving Bethesda’s latest. Without an official set of modding tools available, you wouldn’t expect much headway, but the community has already yielded at least one incredible mod for the in-game map. A quick alteration to the game’s files allows for a free-scrolling, extreme-zooming version of the feature. Rather than witnessing the sprawling landscape from a vantage point so high the clouds can obscure cities, you’ll be able to zoom close enough to see the detail on individual cobblestones.

To enable this feature, you don’t even need to download a complicated .exe or folder. Instead, poster Mikanoshi on Skyrim mod site, Skyrim Nexus, has detailed the steps necessary to alter the game’s map file. If you’re interested, you should follow the instructions on the site, but the process only involves changing a few lines of code in the Skyrim.ini file located in the install folder.

This may seem like a frivolous addition, but Skyrim’s sprawling landscape and phenomenal geography is still giving me pause, even in the middle of getting my ass kicked by a giant bear. Being able to appreciate it from a birds eye view really highlights how awe-inspiring gaming has become.

If having the functionality of Google Earth in your fantasy world is somehow not exciting enough, PC Gamers has a compilation of the best efforts of the modding community thus far. The list includes a mods that overhaul wilderness textures, facial detail upgrades, and even a mod that changes spiders to bears, for some reason. Take a look.