Starfield Will Get Official Mod Support in 2024, Bethesda Confirms
The modding community has already released countless unofficial mods into the wild, ranging from QoL fixes to some funny aesthetic-based ones.
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Written by Rahul Chettiyar, Edited by Manas Mitul | Updated: 12 September 2023 12:01 IST
Highlights
Starfield was released September 6 on PC, Xbox Series S/X
Official mod support for Skyrim, Fallout 4 took about half a year to drop
Bethesda hired a modder to add some of the clutter in Starfield
Starfield marks the first new universe from Bethesda in 25 years
Photo Credit: Bethesda Softworks
Starfield is getting official mod support in 2024, game director Todd Howard confirmed in an interview. Since the expansive space RPG's debut in early access, thousands of unofficial mods have been made available online, ranging from ones that enable Nvidia's DLSS upscaling system to making the inventory more compact and user-friendly. However, official modding tools make it easy to add fresh, custom content such as new planets and story quests, essentially opening the playing field for more experimentation. This has been the custom for Bethesda games at launch, where the modding community has been deeply involved with eliminating bugs or enhancing the experience, thanks to a deep understanding of the engine.
“When the mods are ready, you will be able to do almost anything as we have done in the past, and the mods will be supported next year, but we will do it in a big way because we love it too,” Howard told the Japanese outlet Famitsu (machine translated by PCGamesN). The comments mirror a Reddit AMA from 2021, where he confirmed that Starfield would get “full mod support” like previous titles and that they'd love to see more modders make a career out of it. This is, of course, in reference to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim modder Elianora Creations, who was hired by Bethesda to add some of the world clutter and lighting in their latest open-space game. In fact, the impact of modders is so high, that the top five most popular games on Nexus Mods are taken up by Bethesda's games.
The timeline for official mod support is quite similar to previous games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, with the former receiving its share four months after its November 2011 launch (early the following year). Meanwhile, the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Fallout 4 were made officially moddable six months after its November 2015 release via the Creation Kit. Taking that into account, it's very possible that Starfield's modding tools might take longer to appear, considering it was developed on the overhauled Creation Engine 2. The same engine will be used for creating the much-anticipated The Elder Scrolls 6, which recently went into the early development stage.
For now, PC players can messing around with the countless unofficial mods, starting by fixing the minor inconveniences in Starfield such as the lack of an FOV slider to a performance boost mod that squeezes out more framerate without sacrificing the visual fidelity. There've also been some interesting developments in the modding scene, where some players thought it'd be funny to pretend that the game is available on PlayStation systems as well. One such mod replaces the Bethesda intro splash screen with the PlayStation Studios animation, serving as simply an aesthetic choice for fun. It is worth mentioning that enabling any kind of mods or using console commands in Starfield disables unlockable achievements. However, Nexus Mods user Priqrade immediately came up with a mod that counters that stipulation, so you don't miss out on any of them on your playthrough.
What are the most exciting titles that gamers can look forward to in 2023? We discuss some of our favourites on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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