I know most of the Bethesda RPGs have massive mod support, and there’s games like Minecraft that have more mods than anyone can imagine. I would consider those games pretty playable in their vanilla states. Would you say there are any games that were “saved” by modding? Or that are still kept alive by thriving modding communities? What are some of your favorite mods?

  • Definitely RimWorld. There’s so many mods that improve the base game. From QoL mods that make you wonder why that isn’t default in the vanilla game, to mods that complety overhaul the actual win condition. Just overall a really fun, replayability, frustrating game.

    Use mods though. It’ll make it better. Check out p-music mod while you’re at it.

  • Tabletop Simulator and Garry’s mod is all modding, they would be very boring without it. (Tabletop might have the DLC addon content worth playing).

    Cities Skylines fixes many of the broken aspects of vanilla and adds things to the point that Paradox added some of them into an enhanced console edition.

    Slay the Spire, it’s already an amazing game to begin with, but mods allow it to be absolutely insane with customization and cards. Even multiplayer is supported (Together in Spire) and works quite well!

    American/Euro Truck Sim has a multitude of mods that add great stuff and even more realism to the game.

    Call of Duty Black Ops 3 is more or less a bog-standard shooting game without mods, but the number of crazy, funny and innovative maps for zombies gives it an insane amount of replayability.

    • Yeah, Bethesda games in general but Skyrim is the absolute best to me. You can really fine-tune it to be your dream fantasy RPG, it’s great! On its own I would say it’s a good/decent game, but with mods it’s easily one of my favorite games ever.

  • Factorio all the way. Get bored of finishing the game, or crafting the perfect megabases? Prepare for mods that can take 1000s of hours to finish. Perfection.

    As always, the factory must grow.

      • It is absolutely time to start up another game. After all, the factory must grow.

        That having been said, having a lot of fun trying to optimise everything. Still fairly new to the game myself (~200 hours) but it’s been a blast. It’s so addictive.

        • One of the great things about Factorio is the ability to pick and choose parts of a lot of modpacks. After first encountering Bob’s adjustable inserters on a B+A playthrough, I can’t play without them, and they work great without the rest of the Bob’s pack.

          • I’m going to have to look that one up; been scared to mix and match from different modpacks without understanding the modpack, but might need to do just that. That having been said, I am running an absolute ton of mods, mostly convenience.

  • There are plenty of older games where running some kind of widescreen or compatibility mod to get it working on newer hardware is the only way to get it running well, but that’s kind of a boring techie answer.

    In the spirit of the question, I’d say Fallout 4. The base game has a story I don’t care about, factions that make no sense, and very little in the feeling of actual threat. I usually run between 200 and 300 mods to turn it into a truly post apocalyptic hellscape with functional radiation storms, low visibility in dust storms, darker night, less HUD clutter, more ghouls, proper flashlights, retuned weapon damage so things aren’t so spongy, lots of new gear and weapons (I add in real guns but try to be tasteful and not add too much super modern tacticool stuff, but more cold war and vintage guns), backpacks, re-dress the Minutemen so they don’t look like 1776 LARPers. Add tons of new sidequests and stories to find. The world becomes, this amazing, terrifying place to just explore and forget about the main plot. Returning home to my concrete walled safe settlement and my personal bunker living space really feels earned after exploring.

  • I know it’s not as rich or developed as the Fallout or Skyrim franchise, but my fun little time waste Stardew Valley is greatly enhanced by mods.

    The base game is incredibly fun and simple, but even the most basic mods enhance the “quality of life”, making some of the more surface time eating elements easier. But then you have entire new world maps, NPC’s, quests and full DLC-esque mods such as STV Expanded almost a must-have for long term players.

    As an FYI, I’d highly recommend the game to even the most hardcore gaming aficionados. It’s refreshingly amusing and low-key, so when Elden Ring has you ready to throw your controller at the TV, it’s a nice mental break.

    Plus the guy that created it learned how from scratch and coded the whole thing solo- the source, the sprites, even the music. And every upgrade and addition he’s made over the years, easily 2-3 DLC’s themselves, he’s given away for free. Support indie devs!

    • I completely agreed. Stardew Valley always hit that sweetspot of looking for something hard but not TOO hard.

      I am looking forward to update 1.6 since CA has said the update is more about making modding ever easier which will 100% keep this game alive for a long time through community support.

    •  Pigeon   ( @Lowbird@beehaw.org ) 
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      10 months ago

      Oh my god I never knew Stardew Valley mods existed 0.o but that makes so much sense! I’ll have to try these next time I inevitably return to that game.

      He’s making a game called, iirc, Haunted Chocolatier now. Who knows when that’ll come out, but I want it. :)

      Edit: for people who like Stardew, I recommend Sun Haven and both Portia games (My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock). They’re all three a little rough around the edges, but I’ve had a great time with all of them, without their being clones of Stardew at all.

  • Aside from the obvious minecraft… Arguably I’d say Factorio. They have a robust, feature-rich modding API built into the game that allows for relatively easy, wide ranging game play mods to be made very stable, and the number of mods has exploded as a result. The base game is amazing, but mods exist that quite literally triple the amount of game play and in some cases completely overhaul it into a totally new game. The support is amazing, and I wish more game companies could operate as efficiently as Wube does.

  • Just from a percentage standpoint, the Frackin Universe modpack adds so much to the Starbound experience which is otherwise relatively simple and something you only really play through once. There’s like two or three extra Starbounds’ worth of content, although that can make it overwhelming when starting out

    • The mods added so much new content, that in my case, it created a “mod fatigue” situation, where I had installed so much mods that the game would start to break very easily, and I also would no longer enjoy the game for what it is. But recently, I tried playing it again, this time restraining my use of mods, and it was awesome !

      Mods can be pretty good, but overmoding is quite tiring :')