tl;dr: You're new: Special Edition. Not new: Legendary Edition

Let me be really clear here: Skyrim is a beautiful game, maybe a bit dated. But we're talking about a game with a massive Modding community here.

Special Edition is definitely a nice gift to have gotten for free, thanks Bethesda, but if you didn't get it free, there's still a handful of reasons to buy Special Edition.

First off, the price is about as high as Legendary Edition, which is reasonable. On top of that, it's way more stable. My heavily modded normal Skyrim couldn't really run for an hour without crashing, while Special Edition only crashed once during a side quest. The additions are also helpful, like actual new content (Torturer's Hood, for example) and built-in Mod Support.

Speaking of mods: On paper they sound nice, but size is an issue.
For people that don't know, Normal Skyrim has some great communities for mods: Nexus, Steam Workshop, LoversLab (Hey, it deserves respect too) and Special Edition has almost none, at least not yet. Plus the best graphics enhancer ever (ENB) doesn't even work on Special Edition's engine anymore, nor does the Script Extender. Modding for Special Edition will be extremely limited for quite a while, unlike default Skyrim, which actually looks way better with a ton of mods.

The choice is really up to you.

When to get Special Edition:
- You have a good PC, but not good enough for stupidly look looking mods
- You want a stable game
- You're new to Skyrim
- You're really patient for mods to come

When to get Vanilla/Legendary Edition:
- You have a terrible PC
- You have a beast of a PC to run mods on
- You can't wait for the mods to arrive

For me personally, I have 500+ hours in vanilla Skyrim, I don't need Special Edition. It IS handy now that I'm switching PCs though, I don't need to put all my mods back yet to play Skyrim.

tl;dr: You're new: Special Edition. Not new: Legendary Edition Let me be really clear here: Skyrim is a beautiful game, maybe a bit dated. But we're talking about a game with a massive Modding community here. Special Edition is definitely a nice gift to have gotten for free, thanks Bethesda, but if you didn't get it free, there's still a handful of reasons to buy Special Edition. First off, the price is about as high as Legendary Edition, which is reasonable. On top of that, it's way more stable. My heavily modded normal Skyrim couldn't really run for an hour without crashing, while Special Edition only crashed once during a side quest. The additions are also helpful, like actual new content (Torturer's Hood, for example) and built-in Mod Support. Speaking of mods: On paper they sound nice, but size is an issue. For people that don't know, Normal Skyrim has some great communities for mods: Nexus, Steam Workshop, LoversLab (Hey, it deserves respect too) and Special Edition has almost none, at least not yet. Plus the best graphics enhancer ever (ENB) doesn't even work on Special Edition's engine anymore, nor does the Script Extender. Modding for Special Edition will be extremely limited for quite a while, unlike default Skyrim, which actually looks way better with a ton of mods. The choice is really up to you. When to get Special Edition: - You have a good PC, but not good enough for stupidly look looking mods - You want a stable game - You're new to Skyrim - You're really patient for mods to come When to get Vanilla/Legendary Edition: - You have a terrible PC - You have a beast of a PC to run mods on - You can't wait for the mods to arrive For me personally, I have 500+ hours in vanilla Skyrim, I don't need Special Edition. It IS handy now that I'm switching PCs though, I don't need to put all my mods back yet to play Skyrim.