Huge Skyrim Special Edition expansion mod Falskaar ported to Xbox One – PS4 players will miss out

The gulf in scope between the mods available for Skyrim: Special Edition on Xbox One and PS4 has taken a further step forward with the release of a huge fan-made expansion – one that will only ever see the light of day in its complete form on Microsoft's home console.

The mod in question is Falskaar – a story-led addition to Skyrim's base game that takes the player to an entirely new land by boat. Originally created and released for PC, the port brings across the estimated 20-30 hours of gameplay – made up of 9 main story quests and 17 side-quests – new weapons, items, shouts and even the original voice-acting and soundtrack recorded specifically for the unofficial add-on.

Falskaar was created by Alexander J. Velicky who was 19 years old at the time it launched on PC in 2013. Velicky suspended his further education plans in the hopes of landing a job at Bethesda and reportedly sunk 2,000 hours into the mod's development. He later snagged a job at Destiny developer, Bungie.

On Xbox One, the mod weighs in at 580.8MB, which is only slightly smaller than the 581.2MB PC version. While the PS4's mod size restriction of 900MB would allow for an large download such as Falskaar, it will not be supported on Sony's console due to external asset restraints.

Unlike on Xbox One, the PS4's lack of support for external scripts, sound files and textures limits the potential to make significant changes to gameplay. As a result, large-scale mods with custom assets like Falskaar would be incompatible with Sony's hardware without a major build overhaul.

For those interested in downloading Falskaar on Xbox One, you can find it on Bethesda's mod page here.

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