A lot of gamers, especially those who stick to consoles only, never really got to experience what the Skyrim modding community has been up to the last few years. There are incredible mods out there ranging from the epic to the absurd, all of them free and all of them made by devoted fans compelled to bring their vision to 2011’s award-winning, best-selling, stylin', profilin', limousine riding, jet flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin' n' dealin' Game of the Year.
“Our modders, they are awesome developers,” Todd Howard, game director at Bethesda Game Studios, told iDigitalTimes. “They've been doing it with us for a really long time through all our games.”
Skyrim: Special Edition mods will work just fine on consoles because there aren’t any Skyrim mods on consoles anyway. But PC users have expressed concern that the update to Skyrim: Special Edition (which is free on PC) will break a lot of the popular mods currently available. But Howard believes the combination of modder talent and proper planning will make it a smooth transition for the community.
“It's a new mod system, but its similar. The modders will have to download the new creation kit that works with Skyrim: Special Edition . It's 64-bit,” he said. “The ones that have the good mods and are involved with the community, they'll download the new 64 bit editor and make sure the new mods work. They'll have to re-export them for the audience playing Skyrim: Special Edition .”
The real dream for console gamers is to one day have access to some of the really ambitious mods for Skyrim. Projects like Beyond Skyrim, which seeks to add the maps from previous Elder Scrolls titles as well as custom maps for new regions, seem unfathomable to console gamers. That much content for free? Insane. Unfortunately, not all mods are created equal, and some of the larger projects, or graphical enhancements, may have trouble running on current consoles. But Howard is confident that there might be an answer in future tech.
“Our hope is they'll eventually find their way around those limitations. Particularly as you get better hardware on the consoles, we're breaking that down. And there are some other intricacies when you get into consoles with security and storage,” he said.
Those intricacies came to a head earlier this year, when Sony and Bethesda got into a testy Twitter and PR tiff about the inclusion of mods on PS4. It appeared Sony wasn’t going to allow mods after all, essentially hamstringing Skyrim: Special Edition PS4 sales in the process, but the two sides came together. Mods still aren’t on the PS4 version of Fallout 4 but will be available for Skyrim: Special Edition on PS4 as well as Xbox One. For Howard, mods aren’t a short term commitment or a launch bonus. He sees a future for console mods.
“We're happy that we've crossed that river now and have mods on consoles. Just like we did on PC long ago we think mods are something we're going to keep improving every year,” he said.
Are you excited for Skyrim: Special Edition? You mod bro? Tell us in the comments!
