The Special Edition of Skyrim has been released today. Henriquejr spotted an article about the save game compability at PC Gamer:
More information.How Skyrim Special Edition works (and doesn't) with your existing saved games and mods
You can transfer vanilla saves easily, but modded saves probably won't work at all.
With Skyrim: Special Edition arriving Thursday, we realized we had a few questions about how it's all going to work in terms of mods, saved games, and most importantly: modded saved games.
Here's what we know so far, and unfortunately it's not all good news. We'll update this post with any additional information we discover.
Skyrim and Skyrim Special Edition are two separate games
You probably know this one, but just in case: if you own Skyrim and its expansions, you'll get Skyrim Special Edition for free, and you don't need to worry about Skyrim SE overwriting or replacing your original copy of Skyrim.
They are two completely separate games. If you have saved games and installed mods for Skyrim, you will still be able to play them with your original copy of Skyrim after the Special Edition appears.
Existing unmodified saved games can be used with Skyrim SE
If you've got saved games from the original Skyrim, you can use them with Skyrim SE. According to an email from Bethesda, it's just a matter of copying and pasting the files:
"Existing save games from the original PC game will work in the PC version of Skyrim Special Edition. Simply copy your old saves from My Games/Skyrim to My Games/Skyrim Special Edition."
So, you'll be able to pick up in the Special Edition right where you left off in the original. This is only for unmodded saved games, though, and here comes the bad news.
Modded saved games most likely won't work at all with Skyrim SE
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