Simply incredible... one of the finest mods in existence, it is a masterpiece and it's free... To call it a 'mod' is almost insulting, it's a fully fledged game.

If you loved Skyrim you will absolutely love this.

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* Incredibly story with genuinely unexpected plot twists up to the very end.
* Amazing and varied voice acting, far surpassing Skyrim in almost every way.
* Incredible soundtrack, it's better than Skyrim... it really is.
* Has it's own lore, history, factions, explanations as to why magic exists/works, completely unique and separate from Skyrim.
* Various biomes including deserts, jungle, warm beaches, fields, farmland, mushroom forests etc.
* Very stable, only a handful of crashes in 100 hours of play (around 5-7ish).
* A working and detailed house customisation system.
* Every single location is handcrafted as far as I can tell, not a single dungeon is alike.
* You are given a secure (and linked) storage chest very early in the game, to the hoarders out there you don't need to worry.
* Very fast loading screens, usually too fast to read the tooltip. (You can find all tooltips on their wiki)
* Many quests will have multiple choices and endings, some of them require hard and depressing choices.
* Working ladders! If you see an unreachable area check to see if you can interact with the ladder.
* A bank with working interest system, deposit gold and each day you gain some gold, the more you deposit (to an extent/limit) and the longer it's there the more you receive each day.


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* Only human races (I know, I know... sorry for being a filthy Khajiit).
* No point and click fast travel, you'll need to use teleport scrolls, mark/return spells. mounts and Myrads, fluffy bird raptors that act as the fast travel.
* Quite dark, I mean visually, having a torch or magelight spell will be important, note that torchs do expire eventually but takes quite a while.
* Regardless of your settings, dedicated cutscenes are very, very loud.
* Unique levelling system, you'll need to specialise to some extent if you want to master certain skills, you won't be able to 100 everything in one run.
* For much of the game gold will be a limiting factor, you'll need it for a lot of things including skillbooks.
* The game has levelled areas so the enemies you encounter will not vary in level, if an area is too hard come back to it later or employ different strategies.
* Likely as a balancing choice, enchanting and alchemy does feel fairly weak even if specialised in.


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* Always have a source of light with you, game is quite dark.
* Once in Ark check the magic vendors in the market/noble district and get the mark/return spell, it'll make travelling a lot easier, especially for hoarders to drop stuff off and return back to their last location.
* Have a small amount of gold on you at all times (100-200ish), don't spend all of it or deposit it in the bank, you need small amounts to pay for Myrad travel, buy teleport scrolls, buying food etc.
* Have some cooked food with you always, cooked food is an easy and cheap way to gain health regeneration outside of combat, this avoids having to use spells or potions which increases your arcane fever (the anti-heal spamming mechanic).
* The game clearly states which main quest is the 'point of no return', explore and do side quests to your hearts content until you chose to start that quest.
* Early game combat is quite hard, don't let it get you down, use summons, plan your engagement, use anything available to you to win... even the game encourages you to stand on rocks to avoid melee attackers, it's not cheesing, it's doing what you need to to survive.


This mod game was an experience that I loved from start to finish.

I'll come out swinging for Enderal off the bat. I think the beginning of the game has mediocre writing, and while it visually sets up a spectacle to make up for it, it has put off some of my friends from continuing to play. ...And that's sad, because Enderal has some of the finest crafted dungeons and map design I have ever seen from an open world RPG.

If you can get past the beginning and all those cutscenes, what you have here is a sandbox highly reminiscent of a modernized Morrowind, where the player starts out honestly quite weak and will immediately struggle to kill even low tier enemies in Skyrim without proper forethought and skill planning.

Combine that with a fairly unforgiving system where finding health potions and great gear stocked everywhere is more of a rarity than commonplace like Skyrim, static level regions meaning you can tumble into high level enemies by accident, needing to purchase expensive books to raise skills properly, and you have a pretty hostile opening experience for newcomers which I'm sure has bounced off more than a couple players, even at the lowest difficulty settings.

But it's a confusing experience worth getting lost in. It's a world worth caring for. It's a world worth feeling something over in a time where modern games refuse to have nuanced relationships with characters.

Amazing world building and main story.