Skyrim modder finally gives the game’s animals the swimming lessons they need

Modders have historically put a lot of effort into making Skyrim feel as immersive and realistic as possible, bringing everything from destructible furniture to gear-equipping animations and dynamically-learning NPCs to the game.

Sadly, the game’s wildlife has a long history of doing things that don’t quite make sense, whether this is randomly reporting crimes or deciding to pursue the study of magic.

Thankfully, a new mod has arrived to help solve another strange phenomenon that’s long affected Skyrim’s animal kingdom: the inability to swim properly.

Get ready to watch Skyrim’s rabbits become mini versions of Michael Phelps

The mod in question is called ‘Animals Swim (Sort of)’, and is the work of prolific modder JaySerpa. Their previous work has overhauled the game’s civil war questline and given the Dragonborn the chance to be rejected when proposing to a would-be spouse.

This time, they’ve decided to fix the fact that, in vanilla Skyrim, some animals prefer to run along the bottom of bodies of water rather than swimming across the surface as they should.

Their newest mod accomplishes this not by confiscating scuba gear, but by slowing the animals down and casting a water walking spell on them that’ll help them to float merrily along as Akatosh intended and as you can see in the video below.

Unfortunately, while it’s a vast improvement on the vanilla situation, there may be some instances when critters escape from the mod’s grasp and duck under the surface of the water, especially if they’re in combat.

That said, most of the time, the list of the fauna affected by the mod, which includes everything from rabbits and deer to bears and wolves, should hopefully do as they’re told.

The mod is also very minimalistic in its construction, meaning that it’s unlikely to cause any conflicts in your load order, which is useful if you’re already running a heavily customised version of the game.

Regardless of how many times you’ve been freaked out by a Skyrim rabbit’s sudden descent to the depths, make sure to follow us for more updates on The Elder Scrolls 6 and the wacky world of Skyrim modding.