My hopes for Starfield Modding

 

Astronaut on the Moon 1969. Made using Bing AI generator. 



Starfield and the Modding Community


Starfield is getting closer and closer to release, and I expect that it will be making a splash on the video game scene for years to come. Much like other Bethesda titles, modding of this game will be paramount to this game's longevity. 

Modding is something that I love to see in video games. Gamers take a corporate product and make it their own. There is beauty in that. 

We have seen with other games in the Bethesda catalog that the modding community is vital to helping a game continue to thrive for years. For example, when Oblivion was released in 2006, many intrepid modders were vital in the process of making a mod called Oldlivion, which allowed for the game to run on older machines. Modders provide an important community resource for gamers that act as a supplement to the developers that produce the games. 

However, modding in Bethesda games really took off with the release of Skyrim in 2011. In comparison with Oblivion, the Skyrim modding scene was much more vibrant, probably because Skyrim had many more sales that resulted in the games being more mainstream than any other Bethesda title out there. Modders for years have allowed for Skyrim to breath new air that keeps the game fresh in the eyes of many fans. 

With Skyrim turning 12 this year, it is clear that the modding community has been highly successful in being able to continue supporting the game. Even in the past year, we have seen the rise of Chat-GPT powered NPCS mods which could provide a basis for future endeavors in the video game industry.

Onto the topic of Starfield, what type of mods would I expect to see or like to see?

Starfield Mods: Graphics

This is a very important part of any modding community. I expect that graphics mods will be the most popular mods in the opening months after the release of this game. While Bethesda has done a great job at upgrading the Creation Engine, their npcs still leave much to be desired in comparison to other RPGs out there like the recent Baldur's Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2077. 

Within the first couple of weeks of release, I expect that mods that enhance the looks of NPCs to be the most popular. 

Starfield Mods: Quality of Life improvements

While not as attractive to talk about as graphics, improvements to the interface and just general cleaning up of the game's technical shortcomings may be what attracts modders to the game in the opening weeks after launch.

Starfield Mods: Quests

Considering that there are many quests in Starfield already, I expect that this will take a bit more time than graphics or quality of life improvements mods. 

Starfield Mods: Planets

While Starfield has a mind-boggling amount of planets and moons. I expect that some players will be craving for more. These mods will take more time to come out as we already have a huge amount of content already. However, I look forward to seeing what players come up with.

Starfield Mods: Ships

Ship design is already quite considerable in its features in Starfield but I expect that it will be expanded upon by modders. There will probably be more aspects of ship building that I did not even think about.

Starfield Mods: Character NPCS and integration with ChatGPT

While Bethesda hasn't seemingly shown any gameplay that indicates that ChatGPT software has been used in the game, I expect that Chat-GPT NPCs will probably come earlier than people expect, considering that many of these modders already have experience from making them in Skyrim.

This game is going to a paradise for Modders of all types

As Todd Howard as said, Starfield is going to be a paradise for modders. I expect that this will probably be true. They even have someone devoted to the modding community. When Starfield hits store shelves and Steam in a couple weeks, we should expect that the creativity of the modding community will take this game to unexpected areas that we did not even expect. That is the beauty of modding; they take something that was corporate and make it their own. That is a thing of beauty that cannot be replicated easily in any other medium. The hype is real and modders will just make this game even more engrossing than it already is.


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