So I’ve been trying to get this old mod for Skyrim to work, the one that adds a whole new faction questline, but it just crashes on the new game load. I followed the install guide to the letter, cleaned the masters, and my load order seems right. Has anyone else hit a wall like this with a seemingly stable mod setup? I’m starting to wonder if it’s a deeper engine conflict I just don’t know how to spot.
That Skyrim mod crash on a new game load sounds really frustrating and personal for you. You followed the install guide and cleaned the masters yet the game still bites at the start. Sometimes the engine can throw a curve ball with a faction quest line that looks stable but is not. Have you tried isolating the mod by loading only it and a clean save to see if the crash still happens?
As a checker this looks like a load order symptom and possibly a missing master or a hard reference. The new faction quest line in the mod may pull assets from another mod that is not loaded early enough. Try a minimal profile with only the base game and the mod to see if it loads.
I am not sure if you mean a fatal crash or a soft freeze in the first moment. The idea might be that the faction quest line is trying to hook into world data that is not loaded yet. If you keep the other mods quiet you might see a clearer result from the mod itself.
Maybe the problem is not the mod at all but a lingering cache or a hardware quirk you carry over from a long session. A clean profile and a quick test run could show that the crash comes from something else and not the faction content in the mod.
What if the issue is not a failure of compatibility but a question of how you want to experience the game. A new faction quest line can redefine pacing and narrative pressure in a way the old engine does not fully support. That framing can help you decide if chasing a fix is worth it.
If you want a quick sanity check try loading the mod alone in a fresh save and note when the crash happens and whether it shows a specific error disclaimer.