
Skyrim has loads of oddities. There’s the goldfish reminiscence of your enemies, the best way you may get ok at pickpocketing to actually steal the shirt off somebody’s again, and the way it’s doable for NPCs to achieve a stage of narrative significance ample to chase away loss of life. However these are nothings. Trifles. Mere bagatelles in comparison with the game’s most main inconsistency: The pheasants.
Give it some thought. Pheasants are everywhere in Skyrim, however solely ever as corpses. They grasp in kitchens and linger in meals halls, however you possibly can depend the variety of residing ones you see on no arms in any respect. Are we to consider that the denizens of Skyrim, just like the hunters of the Dodo, lowered the area’s pheasant inhabitants to a set of chilly our bodies and heat reminiscences? How lengthy have they been gone? Are these corpses you possibly can take giblets from decaying by the point the game takes place?
Put these disagreeable ideas out of your thoughts, as a result of Skyrim modders are right here—as soon as once more—to protect logic and save the day. A mod known as Ring-necked Pheasants – Mihail Monsters and Animals returns the standard pheasant to its pure dwelling: Skyrim’s wilderness, not its pantries.
The creator, MihailMods, is critical about their craft, too. Their mods are “carried out in an immersive and distinctive means, with respect to the pillars of lore,” they are saying, emphasising that “as a substitute of pathetically simply throwing fashions and textures within the game reusing 100% vanilla mechanics, the creatures made by Mihail have uniqueness and excessive zeal of their idealization and implementation, which can offer you an expertise that you’ve by no means had earlier than on this space”. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
It truthfully seems nice. The creator is clearly one thing of an ornithological artist, and the pheasant they’ve rendered for Skyrim (together with its older Legendary Version) is frankly luxurious. He struts, he preens, the night daylight dances on his iridescent feathers as if on a pool of clear water. They even make the best pheasant-y noises.
I imply actually, simply evaluate the game’s inventory (lifeless) birds with MihailMods’ model under. There is not any contest.
Don’t be concerned, you possibly can exchange the same old lifeless pheasants with MihailMods’ model utilizing a unique mod.
You would possibly assume I am poking enjoyable, however I am not. MihailMod’s bird actually is exquisitely rendered, and has ensured that I will not be capable of play Skyrim ever once more with out the peculiar absence of residing pheasants sticking in my craw. Mods like these—tiny, hyper-particular issues that repair points that solely a vanishing share of gamers are prone to have—would possibly really be my favorite variety. And should you want extra bird variants in your Skyrim playthrough, you possibly can all the time throw within the chicks and rooster variant mods from the identical creator.