Skyrim Players Warned New Update May Wreck Their Saves

Published Aug 20, 2026, 9:56 AM EDT Chris is a Gaming Editor at ScreenRant. He has been a professional writer since 2009, and has written for top TV, comics, movie, and video game outlets like Engadget, Polygon, Destructoid, and more. He brings with him an expertise in every game genre, no matter how niche or mainstream. You may know him as the former Managing/Reviews Editor of Destructoid, where he published hundreds of game reviews across every genre, including MMOs, sports games, and Metroidvanias. Find Chris on Twitter @_SRChris. Sign in to your ScreenRant account The ascent of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim was slow, but effective. As the positive word of mouth around the launch grew, so did the audience. Eventually, people took to Skyrim and never looked back, often playing it for years and modifying it to high heaven. Over time, that community would blossom into a huge force of nature when it comes to modding, adding things to the game that Bethesda never will, along with quality-of-life updates and bug fixes often before official patches. In fact, some fans are against official patches for Skyrim altogether at this point. After a new official post on X from Bethesda, fans are warning each otherto back up their saves. Bethesda Entertainment This week, Bethesda patched Fallout 4, which caused all sorts of issues for the community. But buried within the message was an ill portent for Skyrim fans: another patch was coming for that game, too. Here's the full statement from Bethesda: "On Tuesday, August 18th, a patch will be coming to Fallout 4 focusing on general Creations improvements. As a precaution, prior to these updates we encourage players to log into your game save if you haven’t done so in a while or manually save your load order. Once your load order is saved, you’ll be able to re-download your entire Creations list at once when the update is live. Additionally, we are also working on a Skyrim update with details to come soon." Seems harmless, right? Well, fans are recalling all the times Creations patches have broken things, including save files and access to mods. The Skyrim Creation update is kind of like a looming threat; one that fans are already looking to prep for. As one fan puts it: "Why? After the AE update broke the game, I have no confidence in their updates of this old game which I still enjoy with mods. Mods keep this game alive for me and now you are about to break them, again. Nobody is asking for this. Leave it alone, it was months before AE was smoothed out enough to play by mostly modders, and y'all about to break it again." Others have moved to just modifying the game entirely: "I just turned off updates for the game and launch it via the script extender. I'm so tired of Bethesda breaking all my playthroughs." If you're a Skyrim fan, everything could be fine once this mysterious 2026-bound patch arrives. But just in case, it might be a good idea to back up your saves and take note of your mods. Systems Released November 11, 2011 ESRB M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol Developer(s) Bethesda Game Studios Publisher(s) Bethesda Softworks Engine Creation Engine