It's fair to say that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim suffered from a lack of focus. This is clear in a bunch of areas, from an open class system that lacked depth to create any kind of real, distinct build to tonal whiplash with some of the concepts Bethesda tried to explore.

The biggest problem, however, is in how the player character was constructed. Despite being heralded as the ultimate Nord hero, you can also be the Harbinger of the Companions, the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, a Nightingale in service of Nocturnal, Master of the Thieves Guild, Champion of every Daedric Prince, Thane of every Hold, hero in the civil war and so on.

Essentially, everything at once... which makes the player character feel inconsistent at best as NPCs are as likely to hail Sithis as they are to thank you for destroying the dragons. If they acknowledge the end of the world at all.

In fairness, this is also a problem with older games and part of the reason why it always feels strange to me to play as anything other than a Dunmer in Morrowind. Or why the token evil choice was ever considered in The Taste of Death quest. All these quests should be available for players to choose and play at their convenience; the problem is how the overall experience is framed. Enter Redux.

What Redux does is firstly sidestep the dragons (including your role as the Dragonborn) and adds a new storyline. This runs in parallel to vanilla content and helps rework the game to play to its strengths as an open world sandbox.

With the Dragonborn now an optional, side quest-style path instead, you start as a character in the world; a nobody with nothing to your name. How you got there is up to you, your origin is for you to determine.

In essence, Redux takes the idea of alternate start mods and constructs a story around that. This gives players freedom in how to go about playing their character, what their moral code (or lack thereof) is and the factions they side with, while still having a personally invested story to engage them in their travels.

Using the existing worldspace, things are still kept open-ended and the world free for you to explore. But be careful, someone is watching from the shadows...




Manual
1. Download the archive and extract it to a location of your choice.
2. Go to /Data/ in your Skyrim directory - NOT the parent folder where SKSE is.
3. Copy all the files from the archive you extracted earlier - making sure to preserve file/folder structure - and paste them inside the Data folder.
4. Check that the Redux.esp plugin is ticked, otherwise it won't work when you run the game and nothing new will appear.
5. To uninstall, just delete those same files.

Mod Manager
Same as usual. Install/uninstall is automated and the mod is nowhere near big enough to cause issues with the installer you're using.



To list off the biggest things first, Redux is not compatible with other alternate start mods since they all do the same thing and make the same edits. Most of the new quest content is separate from vanilla which means the original main quest, factions, side quests, etc. have been left untouched. I recommend putting it lower in your load order to allow lighting mods, etc. to overwrite vanilla, but the mod still requires a new save!

Redux is designed to work in parallel with vanilla, rather than stamping over it and causing a compatibility nightmare, and still keep everything open. However, the mod does edit vanilla content, mostly in how the intro is handled to get the alternate start aspect working.

At the beginning of the game, the attack on Helgen has already happened and people are afraid about what's next. If you still want to do this with Redux, make your way to Dragonsreach and talk with Balgruuf to pick it up from there. The rest will proceed as normal.

Most (if not all) references to the player being at Helgen have been edited out, but triggering MQ102 was necessary because keeping the Civil War questline available wouldn't work otherwise. This was the best way to keep all routes open for players. You can start the Legion/Stormcloak quests any time as normal.

Like most mods that add new content, there will probably be issues with any major town or interior overhauls you have installed, such as a piece of furniture placed where there was nothing beforehand. Shouldn't be anything major, but be aware that the massive changes those mods tend to make might not play nice. Knowledge of xEdit, the Creation Kit or a quick patch should be enough to fix this, if you're unable to work around it with console commands.

Please understand that I will only be supporting this mod, not how it works with others. You are free to make patches, however... same goes with cosmetic overhauls, translations and the like. If you run into any bugs, leave a comment and I'll look into getting it fixed.

Finally, if you're unsure of how to progress past the intro, you need to reach level 10 and then head to Whiterun, Windhelm or Solitude. Look around for an NPC and they'll help you get on your way.


I strongly recommend that you do not play with fast travel enabled. Redux is designed in a way to lead you across the world and overlap with vanilla factions, quests and the like. (Something more diegetic like Wayshrines or a carriage mod would work well, too. Or just ignore it.)

You're welcome to play it however you like, it's not anyone's place to dictate that, but rushing through this will kinda undermine the point. Most quest mods feel at odds with the rest of the game, slapping a chunk of new content into the world that often feels tangential, whereas Redux acts as an ongoing plot thread that’s slowly unravelled as you go.

Take your time, enjoy the journey and Redux will lead to, hopefully, a satisfying end for your playthrough. I also recommend playing with Citizens of Tamriel and Mythos installed, for maximum role-playing value and Ultimate Immersion™. Enjoy!