Game Modifications
Game developers pour their heart and soul into making a game as perfect and complete as they can. When you’re a programmer as well as a gamer, however, no game is truly complete upon release. Modifications, or mods, are alterations of the content of games made by programmers who usually have no connection to the actual developers of the game. Mods cannot be stand-alone programs and require its developers and users to have to have the original release of the game. Mods also have to be made and distributed with the official consent and consultation with the game’s developers.
Popular games such as the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Grand Theft Auto series each have an army of dedicated fans that continue to produce mods long after the game’s release. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for instance, was released in 2011 but there are still mods of the game produced almost daily. These mods range from small visual changes and bug fixes to expansion-level additions such as new quests and areas within the game.
The reasons and intents for making mods vary from person to person and game to game. Gamers who are impatient in waiting for official bug fixes often choose to try their hand at fixing the game themselves. Those who are unsatisfied with a certain aspect or content of a game may try to make adjustments or altogether change that content to better enhance their gaming experience. And then there are those programmers who create mods that have no connection to the original game whatsoever. Looking at Skyrim again as an example, there are extremely useful mods that provide bug fixes, unofficial patches and UI improvements even before Bethesda addressed those issues themselves. There are also mods that enhances the quality of the graphics of the game such as Pure Water, an HD retexture of all the rivers, lakes and seas in Skyrim.
In regards to immersive content, there are mods such as Enderal which is an entirely new and original conversion of the game: a new storyline, an overhaul of the skill systems and gameplay mechanics, and, according to their own site, up to 100 hours of playtime.
To the opposite extreme are weird and downright silly mods such as WereChair which changes the werewolf models in the game to those of chairs; and Call of Trainwiz which transforms the game’s iconic dragons into Thomas the Tank Engine characters.
Mods are mostly distributed freely on popular websites such as NexusMods and Mod DB. These sites also provide software specifically created for easy downloading and installing of mods. Youtube channels such as MxR Mods and Smike preview and promote mods that they believe are worth downloading. To testify to the relevance and popularity of mods, a quick look at the front page of NexusMods shows that Skyrim, the most modded game so far, has over 50,000 files and over 1 billion downloads. So next time you find a game you love and wish to enhance, or a game that you think could be better given a few changes, remember to search for the appropriate mods online. If it so happens that there are no mods existing that can satisfy your preferences, try to make the mod yourself if you are up to the challenge.
