Skyrim Anniversary Edition loads so fast it's making some mods break the game

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New black screen error has a simple fix

Skyrim Anniversary Edition
(Image credit: Bethesda)

If you're getting a Skyrim Anniversary Edition black screen error, you may need to check in on some of your favorite mods.

As spotted by our friends at PC Gamer, the new version of Skyrim which went live as part of the anniversary update has caused a few unexpected issues to pop up. It's not nearly as bad as it likely would have if Bethesda hadn't given a modder early Anniversary Edition access to help ward off a "modpocalypse," but the one PC Gamer ran into caused the game to launch into a black screen with some music in the background, which isn't very fun to play.

It turns out the issue is related to improvements made on Skyrim's back end, specifically the compiler used to put the game together when you launch it. It's substantially faster than the old compiler, and that extra speed throws off the timing some mods rely on as they load up along with the game.

The creator of Lucien, a popular new follower players can add into the game, found the source of the issue in their mod and fixed it by simply adding a three second delay to the mod when it starts up. If you've run into the Skyrim Anniversary Edition black screen error, make sure mods like Lucien are running on their latest version, and failing that, try disabling them until their creators can get them working with Skyrim's updated architecture.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan
Former GamesRadar+ News Writer

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.