Jody reviewed the Skyrim total conversion mod Enderal back in August 2016, and liked it quite a bit. It wasn't enough to make Bethesda sweat, but he found it big and beefy, with a high quality of writing and better voice acting than you usually see in fan projects. A Steam page appeared last year, promising to eliminate the hassles involved with installing the mod, and today the developers announced that it will go live on February 14. 

Like Skyrim, Enderal is an open world game, but with its own lore and landscapes, completely separate from The Elder Scrolls series. Gameplay has been "overhauled" with new classes, survival mechanics, and "challenging combat," and the Forgotten Stories version on Steam has been expanded with two new "crafting classes," 12 additional side quests and non-linear guild questlines, reworked crafting and spells, and improved performance and stability. 

Possibly the biggest attraction is that the Steam release vastly simplifies the process of installing the thing. The original mod had to be downloaded and installed overtop of Skyrim, which is both a little daunting and not terribly convenient if you also want to continue playing Skyrim. Enderal: Forgotten Stories is entirely standalone. As long as you own either Skyrim Classic or Skyrim Legendary Edition—it doesn't have to be installed—you can install and play Enderal. 

Unfortunately, it does not work with Skyrim Special Edition; the developers said they might be able to port it at some point in the future, but they don't have the resources to do it now. 

Thanks, RPS. 

Enderal is a total conversion mod for Skyrim by German team SureAI, released in English in 2016. It's a whole separate setting and storyline, keeping the familiar controls and physics but changing plenty of other things—adding experience points and removing fast travel, for instance. 

Originally, it had to be downloaded from SureAI's servers and installed over the top of Skyrim, meaning that it was impossible to switch between Enderal and Skyrim without reinstalling. That's set to change now that Enderal has its own Steam page. As the mod makers put it, "Enderal will have a completely standalone game and save game directory, so that the installation will no longer interfere with your Skyrim directory. You will be able to have both games installed at the same time!"

Though it's not available for download yet, a release date will be announced this year. If you'd like to know more about Enderal, here are our first impressions from back in 2016.