There is no shortage of ambitious Elden Ring mods out there that offer even more reasons to return to one of the best games in recent memory. However, there’s only one mod that turns Elden Ring into something that looks remarkably close to a dream Skyrim sequel.
“First Person Souls” (great name) is a full-game conversion mod from Nexus Mods user Dasaav that lives up to the billing. As the name implies, the mod allows you to play Elden Ring in first-person. While that’s already the kind of modding miracle that speaks to the creativity and talent in the Elden Ring community, this mod actually offers much more than you might think.
See, this mod tries to reimagine Elden Ring as a first-person game. It offers customized HUD elements designed to support first-person play as well as expanded accessibility options that do the same. In other words, this mod goes to great lengths to offer a version of Elden Ring that feels like it was always meant to be played from a first-person perspective.
Now, this is still a fanmade mod, so it obviously isn’t perfect. You will run into some technical issues here and there, and it’s hard to recommend installing this mod for your first time playing the base Elden Ring game. After all, Elden Ring is a pretty tough game even when you’re playing it in its originally intended third-person perspective. Hopping into first-person certainly doesn’t make the game easier. If anything, this mod makes many aspects of that game slightly more challenging and certainly a bit jankier.
Even still, this is a truly incredible piece of work. It’s fairly stable from a technical perspective, and it’s mechanically exceptional. It’s a novelty, yes, but it’s a novelty that is far more functional than it has any right to be. Basic melee combat looks and plays remarkably well, and magic and archery are natural fits for this perspective shift. Honestly, though, just walking around Elden Ring‘s world in first-person may be the highlight of the experience.
Actually, there are many aspects of the base Elden Ring experience that are arguably enhanced by the shift to first-person. Elden Ring‘s world was always darkly beautiful, but this perspective really lets you appreciate the scale of what FromSoftware created. That’s especially true of the boss fights. You can’t really understand what a bug you are to Starscourge Radahn until you’re watching him charge right at you. The game’s dungeons and their various traps and surprises also work incredibly well from this new perspective (so long as you have the stomach for their dangers). Speaking of stomachs, you can play this mod in VR, but that is only recommended for those who are especially resilient to motion sickness.
That brings us back to the Elder Scrolls comparison you see in the headline for this article. That comparison is obviously a little hyperbolic. If anything, the mod is closer to the first-person King’s Field series that served as a predecessor to the entire Soulsborne concept.
The comparison is fascinating as a thought experiment, though. First-person Elden Ring offers significantly more complicated combat than recent Elder Scrolls games as well as quite a few open-world quests and activities. Elden Ring was obviously never trying to be Skyrim, but this mod is an interesting showcase of how Elder Scrolls 6 could incorporate a few Elden Ring ideas. To put it another way, this mod offers a glimpse of what a future Elder Scrolls RPG could look and play like if Bethesda was interested in pushing the series in a slightly darker, more intense, and more action-focused direction. While I would never want Bethesda to completely abandon that BGS design style (it’s why so many people are looking forward to Starfield), this mod does feature a few things I would love to see in a proper Elder Scrolls game. Maybe Obsidian’s Avowed will emphasize some of those elements.
Regardless, this mod is an impressive piece of work. You never need a great excuse to dive back into Elden Ring, but if your PC can support this mod, you should absolutely give it a shot in order to experience a kind of Soulsborne open-world adventure we may never otherwise get.