- #MOST MODDED GAMES OF ALL TIME MOD#
- #MOST MODDED GAMES OF ALL TIME MODS#
- #MOST MODDED GAMES OF ALL TIME SERIES#
It’s also funny because Swedish developer Coffee Stain Studios made it as a joke and never actually meant to release it, but it did and now more than 2.5 million people have played. It’s funny because: you’re a goat, clip-clopping around a glitchy urban environment ruining barbecues, destroying museums and licking passing trucks. Perhaps it’s death of the author at its most extreme, but it’s their game now, they claimed it for themselves a long time ago.Goat Simulator. Looking back on the ten years of Skyrim so far, what should it be remembered for? I say the modders themselves.
It’s an endlessly modular Lego set where anything is possible, it’s the sandbox where all the fantastical dreams of our childhood are replicable, and it’s a living document of the creative spirit of modders across gaming. However, with mods, Skyrim is one of the best games on the planet. And while it doesn’t always achieve its lofty goals, it’s a foundation that’s helped it dominate the past decade of the popular gaming discourse. It manages to ride a unique line of playing it too safe sometimes, while also being audacious and attempting to push the medium forward. The vanilla experience has struck a chord with so many people, with whole communities of gamers brought together by their shared experience as Dovakhiin - and there is something there worth celebrating. Skyrim is by no means a terrible game, it’s pretty good all things considered. Sure ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage dragons, Zoidberg crab reskins, and adding the Wilhelm Scream are all fun as hell, but it’s fleeting compared to the draw of being sucked into a fully realised environment for hours, living as the character you inhabit.
#MOST MODDED GAMES OF ALL TIME MODS#
I personally favoured these mods the most too. It’s one of the core aspects of video game RPGs, after all, drawing the player into the world so much they forget they’re even in a digital world to begin with.
#MOST MODDED GAMES OF ALL TIME MOD#
A glance at the top mods on the Skyrim page for Nexus Mods reveals this too, with the highest spot occupied by a simple UI mod that makes the heavily ‘consolised’ user interface more appropriate for PC users.Ī common thread, amongst many of the top mods, is the purpose of increasing immersion in the experience. But mods really shine at enhancing already existing systems, improving graphics and gameplay, fixing bugs, and adding all manner of new content to try.
Mods don’t even approach fixing all these issues, though they can alleviate some of them. This is readily apparent after putting more than a dozen hours into the game when your heroic deeds as the Dragonborn have no major reverberations around the world when you’re knee-deep into your 10th dungeon with the same layout and draugr enemies when you get accepted into the College of Winterhold, with only a rudimentary knowledge of the arcane and when most of the quests reveal themselves as vapid fetch or murder missions. One of the most pointed criticisms of Skyrim is that it’s as wide as an ocean, but as deep as a puddle. Which brings me to the 'why.' As in, why is Skyrim only great with mods? The point is, Skyrim wouldn’t be what it is today without the advent of easily accessible modding tools and places to find those mods. You can even play entire other games, such as The Forgotten City, which was an original story mod that recently got its own standalone release as a separate game. The truth is, mods have extended Skyrim’s life tenfold and made it possible to transform the bland vanilla experience into a whole new game.
With over 400 hours across the Xbox 360 version, and the PC version with a litany of mods, I have played enough Skyrim to comfortably declare that it’s only a great game when modded. I personally first tried Skyrim as one of those RPG newbies on release and loved it dearly, but now ten years later after cutting my teeth on games like Planescape: Torment and Knights of the Old Republic II, and experiencing what RPGs are really capable of, my thoughts on the game have evolved.
This has earned it a somewhat divisive reputation amongst these groups, with some swearing it off as the worst RPG ever, and others accepting its place as a solid introduction to the genre.
#MOST MODDED GAMES OF ALL TIME SERIES#
These served to make Skyrim the most popular entry of The Elder Scrolls and a behemoth success, but also alienated long-time fans of the series and the more hardcore RPG faithful. Perhaps the key to its huge success is how streamlined Bethesda made the experience, with design elements clearly geared toward the lowest-common denominator and a more mainstream console audience.