Nearly a decade after it released as a bit of a mess on PS3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on PS5 can now be played at 60 FPS thanks to the work of one of the game’s console modders.
Created by a modder who goes by Wrighton, “Skyrim @ 60fps” is exactly what it says on the tin, unlocking the game’s framerate on PS5 to boost it from the standard 30 FPS. I downloaded and installed the mod yesterday, instantly noticed Skyrim running extra smoothly, and found myself sucked back into traipsing through snow crusted hills in search of weird NPCs and moral consequences.
“It was made using Bethesda’s own Creation Kit for creating mods, but using a small trick in the software (which I’ve done a video on my YouTube channel about), that allows initialisation/config/.ini files to be uploaded to the PS4 platform, much the same as with Xbox or PC,” Wrighton told Kotaku in an email. “It works by changing a single value in Skyrim’s config file, which the game reads on start-up. Thus allowing the game to run at 60fps instead of 30.”
Skyrim got a similar treatment on Xbox Series X last month, with mods boosting the framerate on that console to 60 FPS as well. Uncapped framerate mods appear to have been around on Xbox for a while now, but it wasn’t until the next-gen consoles came along that players were able to take advantage of the benefits without sending the hardware into a frenzy. (Interestingly, Digital Foundry reported that Skyrim actually ran at a more consistent boosted framerate on Xbox Series S than X.)
An added bonus with Wrighton’s mod is that it can be disabled and still work, allowing players to still earn trophies while playing at the higher framerate. Picking dozens of locks to get the Thief trophy never looked so responsive.