To be fair, probably not a lot of people willing to personally setup or find a modlist that combines the NSFW and gameplay, so the visual aspect is the only thing they'll really be comparing. Even then there's guaranteed degrees of jank in Skyrim but nothing really compares to the sum of its parts, let alone individual aspects like NSFW content variety or even SFW character creation. Especially when WL as an example just doesn't have much gameplay yet, NSFW or otherwise.
I just think these comparisons are self-defeating anyways since Skyrim is a decade old RPG and WL to-date is more of a NSFW animation sandbox - ofc there will have been advancements in animations, rigging, VFX, etc lmfao.
I've never been into NSFW gameplay mods, I'm friends with ppl that are and I'm still amazed by the experiences they come up with. I am a big fan of character creation and that's very limited in WL since it's all preset chars with preset options, scale-based slider morphs rather than geometry morphs, the skeletal limitations you mention, and some really important details like a lack of control over expressions in the animation itself since they're all premade and baked into the corresponding animation's runtime(which looks funny when you speed it up lol)
Sorry about the rambling but this is an interesting topic, it is confusing to see a dude demean the work put into Skyrim modding, for something so contrived as "this 10 yo RPG's NSFW mods don't compare 1:1 to a bespoke NSFW render on a cutting edge engine" xD. The grass is always greener on the other side as they say!
Saying
Skyrim is "old" doesn’t excuse its shortcomings especially when modders have spent over a decade pushing it to its limits. If
Wild Life offers better animation, visuals, and more cohesive scene design out of the box, that's a valid comparison. Age isn’t a shield from critique especially when both are being used for NSFW content. Calling
Wild Life “just an animation sandbox” ignores that it's delivering high-quality real-time visuals, facial expressions, and physics that
Skyrim can only approximate through layers of mods and hours of setup. And while
Skyrim offers more gameplay depth,
Wild Life clearly outclasses it in animation fidelity and ease of use for NSFW content especially without the jank. Modding
Skyrim into something comparable takes dozens of plugins, specific load orders, and constant patching. Meanwhile,
Wild Life delivers polished animation and character rigs without that burden. That's not demeaning modders it's pointing out the limitations of a 13-year-old engine. Comparisons are fair when they're about results.
Wild Life is better in some areas,
Skyrim in others but pretending one can’t be critiqued because it’s “a decade old” isn’t a defense, it’s an excuse. "it is confusing to see a dude demean the work put into Skyrim modding" Pointing out where
Wild Life objectively outperforms
Skyrim—like in animation quality, rigging, or expression control—isn't “demeaning” the work of modders. It's recognizing the technical ceiling of a 13-year-old engine versus a modern one. Respecting the modding community doesn’t mean pretending the Creation Engine can compete 1:1 with Unreal in areas it simply can't. Acknowledging limitations isn’t disrespect—it's just being honest. Calling it "demeaning" just because someone points out limitations you don’t like hearing isn’t a strong argument. It’s not disrespectful to critique something, especially when the points are grounded in fact. If anything, acting like any criticism equals disrespect undermines the very work modders put in because it suggests their efforts can’t be discussed honestly. Critique isn’t an attack it’s part of meaningful comparison. If you can’t take that, it’s not the critique that’s the problem.