Criteria: Realism of Effects Added, Fantasy Atmosphere, Increased Difficulty, Level of Darkness.

Enhanced Lights and FX (known as "ELFX") by anamorfus

An impressive and complete overhaul of all the lighting around Skyrim. This work of art creates a dynamic atmosphere that can be visually seen from within the many dungeons and buildings within towns. Further, this makes for a darker dungeon crawl--which goes along great with many mods from this list! The encounter mods make the dungeons behave as they should, while this mod makes them look as they should.

NOTE: Using this mod will change the lighting atmosphere in Skyrim greatly. If you are using a climates mod (such as Climates of Tamriel) or running a large mod list, more than likely you will need compatibility patches to make everything play nice. Please pay attention to the description pages to see if you will indeed need a patch and where you can obtain it.

Artwork by GhostAgent

Eternal Darkness Redone by the SoT Team and jbvertexx

Eternal Darkness was originally a mod created by our team. When installed, it extinguishes the light sources in all the dungeons making for a pitch black dungeon. (Just like an old-school RPG dungeon crawl, one must bring some type of light source--whether it be a torch, or magical in nature--if one does not bring a light source, it will be very bad for them.) It in effect makes for scary dungeon exploration as you'll be able to hear nearby enemies, but not see them.

We made this mod and saw that it was good. But good ole' jbvertexx saw that it wasn't good enough. He single handedly took over the project and re-released it as "Dynamic Immersive Seriously Dark Dungeons - Eternal Darkness Redone". This superior version uses a lightning fast multi-tasking and multi-threaded optimized script that almost no mod author uses. The light sources are extinguished dynamically, so speed counts. If you like playing in the dark and prefer a more horrific dungeon crawling experience, this is the mod you have been waiting for.

Remove Interior Fog V2 by rgabriel15

When using a mod such as ELFX or another lighting mod, the distant ambient fog becomes quite noticeable. The ambient fog is the annoying "psychic" fog that lets you see off in the distance--which is dumb. A dungeon should be dark, even the back parts of it (sarcasm). This mod kindly kills the 6th sense.

Realistic Nights by the very friendly MountainFisherman

This mod heightens the tension of strolling around at night in that it makes the physical light properties at night much darker (rather than making the screen darker as most "darkening" mods/enbs do). You'll need to have a light source for sure or the terrors of the night will have an even greater advantage.

Complementary Mods: Since Realistic Nights makes night time "can't see your hand in front of your face" dark, you will most likely want to couple it with either Immersive NPC in the Dark (currently in BETA, but very functional) or the older alternative, Light Up the Night - People Have Torches. Plus, to complete the experience, add Immersive Spells & Light as well. (Be sure to disable the option for "Enable NPC Torches" for compatibility.)