
The mod replaced the Nazi enemies in the game with Smurfs.įast-forward a decade or so and you have what is perhaps the most important single title in the history of mods, id Software’s classic first-person shooter, Doom, released in 1993. And this number is expected to skyrocket when the highly anticipated creation kit gets released.ĭescriptionOne of the very first popular mods was a parody of the original Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple II in the early 1980s, called Castle Smurfenstein. Released just over three months ago, Fallout 4 already has more than 7,000 available mods.


Some observers expect Fallout 4 could eclipse Skyrim ’s success. Visitors to can download a staggering 45,588 mod files, which is no small reason why Skyrim sales remain so strong for a game released more than five years ago. To put things into perspective, and to get a grasp of how huge modding has become, let’s first take a look at the numbers.īy far the most modded game is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim from Bethesda Softworks.

However, on the contrary, publishers of highly successful game franchises have embraced this very practice for reasons we will look at shortly. After all, taking a company’s trademarked intellectual property (IP) and modifying it for other gamers to enjoy should ring all sorts of legal alarm bells. The success of the modding scene is, at first glance, a little counter-intuitive. Modding games is one of the most vibrant scenes in the world of PC gaming, with a rich history of great games that have been tweaked, improved and expanded by bedroom coders and professional developers alike.
