diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 2f977ad692..b42b6471a6 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@
     Bug #7122: Teleportation to underwater should cancel active water walking effect
     Bug #7163: Myar Aranath: Wheat breaks the GUI
     Bug #7172: Current music playlist continues playing indefinitely if next playlist is empty
+    Bug #7243: Get Skyrim.esm loading
     Feature #5492: Let rain and snow collide with statics
     Feature #6447: Add LOD support to Object Paging
     Feature #6726: Lua API for creating new objects
diff --git a/apps/openmw/mwworld/esmloader.cpp b/apps/openmw/mwworld/esmloader.cpp
index 0d55847a19..7cb2925232 100644
--- a/apps/openmw/mwworld/esmloader.cpp
+++ b/apps/openmw/mwworld/esmloader.cpp
@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@
 #include <components/esm4/reader.hpp>
 #include <components/files/conversion.hpp>
 #include <components/files/openfile.hpp>
+#include <components/resource/resourcesystem.hpp>
+
+#include "../mwbase/environment.hpp"
 
 namespace MWWorld
 {
@@ -60,7 +63,8 @@ namespace MWWorld
             }
             case ESM::Format::Tes4:
             {
-                ESM4::Reader readerESM4(std::move(stream), filepath);
+                ESM4::Reader readerESM4(
+                    std::move(stream), filepath, MWBase::Environment::get().getResourceSystem()->getVFS());
                 auto statelessEncoder = mEncoder->getStatelessEncoder();
                 readerESM4.setEncoder(&statelessEncoder);
                 mStore.loadESM4(readerESM4);
diff --git a/components/esm4/reader.cpp b/components/esm4/reader.cpp
index b032fabe5f..2ad655784e 100644
--- a/components/esm4/reader.cpp
+++ b/components/esm4/reader.cpp
@@ -74,8 +74,9 @@ namespace ESM4
         subRecordHeader.dataSize = 0;
     }
 
-    Reader::Reader(Files::IStreamPtr&& esmStream, const std::filesystem::path& filename)
-        : mEncoder(nullptr)
+    Reader::Reader(Files::IStreamPtr&& esmStream, const std::filesystem::path& filename, VFS::Manager const* vfs)
+        : mVFS(vfs)
+        , mEncoder(nullptr)
         , mFileSize(0)
         , mStream(std::move(esmStream))
     {
@@ -224,7 +225,8 @@ namespace ESM4
         sp.type = stringType;
 
         // TODO: possibly check if the resource exists?
-        Files::IStreamPtr filestream = Files::openConstrainedFileStream(stringFile);
+        Files::IStreamPtr filestream
+            = mVFS ? mVFS->get(stringFile.string()) : Files::openConstrainedFileStream(stringFile);
 
         filestream->seekg(0, std::ios::end);
         std::size_t fileSize = filestream->tellg();
diff --git a/components/esm4/reader.hpp b/components/esm4/reader.hpp
index f9ceddfeea..0b792dcf28 100644
--- a/components/esm4/reader.hpp
+++ b/components/esm4/reader.hpp
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@
 #include "loadtes4.hpp"
 
 #include <components/files/istreamptr.hpp>
+#include <components/vfs/manager.hpp>
 
 namespace ToUTF8
 {
@@ -83,6 +84,7 @@ namespace ESM4
 
     class Reader
     {
+        VFS::Manager const* mVFS;
         Header mHeader; // ESM4 header
 
         ReaderContext mCtx;
@@ -138,7 +140,7 @@ namespace ESM4
             const ToUTF8::StatelessUtf8Encoder* encoder, bool hasNull = false);
 
     public:
-        Reader(Files::IStreamPtr&& esmStream, const std::filesystem::path& filename);
+        Reader(Files::IStreamPtr&& esmStream, const std::filesystem::path& filename, VFS::Manager const* vfs = nullptr);
         ~Reader();
 
         void open(const std::filesystem::path& filename);