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Play Skyrim in local splitscreen co-op using these mods

Explore Tamriel on the couch with a friend

A pair of mods will let you and a friend be dragonborn together, playing Skyrim in the same room on the same screen as each other. The RPG game can now be played in local co-op, use two popular multiplayer tools.

Nucleus co-op, a mod that turns games into splitscreen multiplayer games, is now campatible with Skyrim Together, a mod for playing online co-op in the open-world game, to make it so yourself and your companion can play simultaneously on the same machine. Skyrim becoming part of the Nucelus library was announced on Reddit as part of the latest version, including instructions on how to put it all together.

You’ll need Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Together through the Harbor launcher –  a newer form of Skyrim Together is available but it isn’t as stable as Harbor. Then you get the latest version of Nucleus, open it, and search for Skyrim in Download Game Scripts. Next, click Search Game to find and run the Skyrim executable through Nucleus. You can open the in-game connection menu using the right CTRL key, and typing in the code 127.0.0.1 will connect you to the local server offline. You should use a different save per instance.

Be sure to consult the FAQ for any immediate questions or concerns, and the requisite subreddit if you have any other issues. Skyrim Together has similar.

Here’s a screenshot of Skyrim co-op in action:

Given this is two experimental pieces of software and relatively new, please be patient, and wary of bugs and glitches. Be sure to have a look at our list of the best Skyrim mods for other ways to make your stay in Tamriel more interesting. As always, mod with caution.