Top 10 Things To Do When You're Bored in Skyrim

If you consider yourself at least a casual gamer, chances are you’ve played Skyrim and completed the main story-line. Afterwards, it can be a shame to say goodbye to the Dragonborn you went on so many adventures with.

Thankfully, Skyrim is one of the richest video game worlds ever created. Brimming with life and things to do, you’ll find it difficult to get bored. If you have done seemingly everything there is to do, you’ll need some ideas to put more hours into.

I’ll go through the 10 best things to do when you’re bored in Skyrim. You don’t have to have completed the main storyline to complete all of these!

10. Hunt

Equip your favorite weapon and roam the countryside, mountains and forests. Kill any neutral or enemy creature you find and loot everything from their corpses. This is most fun with ranged weapons like spells or bows though.

Hunting itself is fun but it’ll also provide a generous bounty of materials, which will help increase a variety of skill levels.

9. Obtain all Dragon Priest masks

Dragon Priest Masks are highly armored Light/Heavy armor items. Each one requires a fairly lengthy journey to obtain but collecting all of them is as awesome as collecting the Infinity Stones. While you can only wear 1 at a time, each one has their own uses and it’s well worth utilising them depending on your situation (i.e shopping, fighting, sneaking).

Here’s a list of each mask and what they do. I won’t spoil how to get them though!

Hevnoraak: The wearer is immune to disease and poison.
Konahrik: When health is low, has a chance to heal wearer and damage nearby enemies.
Krosis: +20% to Lockpicking, Archery, Alchemy.
Morokei: +100% Magicka Regeneration.
Nahkriin: +50 Magicka, -20% Restoration and Destruction Magicka cost.
Otar: Fire, Frost, and Shock resistance is improved 30%.
Rahgot: +70 Stamina.
Vokun: -20% Alteration, Conjuration, and Illusion Magicka cost.
Volsung: +20 Carry limit, 20% better prices, and can breathe underwater.

8. Commit genocide permanently

If you really want to change the whole of Skyrim completely, commit genocide and murder every single unique named character in the entire game. This will dramatically change the entirety of your world save and I only recommend doing so when you’ve done everything else on this list.

You would lose access to various side quests as well as some life in the world. But living in an emptier Skyrim can be a new experience.

7. Become Thane of each hold

In case you didn’t know, there are 9 major holds you can become thane of in Skyrim. Each one comes with gruelling tasks but are heavily rewarding if you complete them. Becoming a Thane grants you a housecarl, which are some of the best followers in the game.

Becoming Thane of all 9 holds will make you a celebrity across Skyrim, everyone looks up to you and completing the quests requires you to interact with citizens. Definitely one of the more fun things to do!

Here are all 9 major holds, including their Capital (where the Jarl lives):

Eastmarch – Windhelm
Falkreath Hold – Falkreath
Haafingar – Solitude
Hjaalmarch – Morthal
The Pale – Dawnstar
The Reach – Markarth
The Rift – Riften
Whiterun Hold – Whiterun
Winterhold – Winterhold

6. Find the Headless Horseman

In over a thousand of hours of playing, I still haven’t found the Headless Horseman. He appears randomly in the world between 10pm and 4am. If you’re like me and prefer to travel during the day, you’ll probably never find him.

If you do though, you can follow him until he stops at Hamvir’s Rest. There you’ll find some puny undead and a Master level chest, full of loot!

5. Acquire and upgrade all properties

As detailed in the list of best player homes, houses in Skyrim offer so much. You should look to acquire each one, costing a dramatically high amount of gold. Next you can furnish each one to be general, jack-of-all-trades or outfit each one differently.

One for alchemy, one for smithing, one for storage etc. The list goes on. Or you can make sure each house has all the supplies you need to make trips to cities a lot easier.

4. Max all skills

The level cap was removed from Skyrim, granted you level a lot slower. In truth, maxing all skills would require 10s of 1000s of hours of gameplay, but aiming to max most of them can offer wide varieties of gameplay.

One day you can play a battle mage, the next a stealth archer. Then on to a two-handed brute, then a sword & shield wielding warrior. Trying to max a large array of skills before you’ve completed the main storyline can lead to inbalance though, making your adventures more difficult.

3. Explore every location

Such a massive world is overflowing with locations, it’s well worth checking out each one. Some may be boring, easily conquered tombs while others come with their own unique aspects. Investing each location to their very core is one of the most fulfilling things you can do in Skyrim.

Just watch out for the insane amount of loot you will acquire, it’s not nice to leave some behind when you’re over-encumbered.

2. Complete all side quests

If the previous entry provided too little or too weak loot, completing all side quests is a sure-fire way of filling up your storage boxes. Almost every side quest rewards some kind of unique item, it’s also a lot more fun as you actually interact with NPCs.

Thanks to the brilliant work of Bethesda, side quests have a wide range of tasks. Everything from fighting, couriering, investing and sneaking can be done. This is where the varied high stat distribution comes in, making each side quest a lot easier and levelling those skills up.

1. Mod

By far the best you can do to give yourself more time and enjoyment in Skyrim is to mod it. The community is still going incredibly strong, with the most popular mods getting millions of downloads.

Think of one thing you’d like to do in Skyrim (except multiplayer) and I bet there’s a mod for it. You can change it into a completely different game while retaining your beloved character.

Modding can be a dangerous process if you do it incorrectly though. Make sure you use the relevant tools and follow as many guides as possible. With any luck, it’ll be a painless set-up job and have you falling in love with Skyrim all over again!