Bethesda turns Skyrim into a mod platform with new Creations feature

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is over 12 years old at this point, but a hefty Bethesda Game Studios update that dropped today is meant to revitalize its modding community. It turns the game into an easily accessible platform with user-made mode content, even on console. Building on what was once the Bethesda Creation Club, this new feature is called Bethesda Game Studios Creations. Its first implementation is in Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Anniversary Edition across PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, and PS5. Bethesda created a Creations storefront where players can buy and download mods that add anything from items to new characters and questlines. It’s also letting Skyrim mod creators join its Verified Creator program so they can set prices for their mods and earn royalties from the sales. I checked out Skyrim Special Edition on Xbox Game Pass to see how this system impacts players. A “Creations” tab is present on the main menu, and picking that option will bring you to an in-game storefront with a variety of potential modes to purchase. There, players can purchase credits, pursue mods they want to buy, and then spend those credits on the mods. After doing this, they can show up in-game. This setup should seem familiar if you’ve pursued user-generated content in games like Fortnite or Roblox, but can also be ignored if you aren’t interested. On PC, you can also just mod the game on your own. This feature works in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition and Anniversary Edition across PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The game is also available for Nintendo Switch. It’s been years in the making, and the gigantic Fallout 4 mod Fallout: London is finally here. The developers at Team FOLON teased the release on Wednesday, and it’s now available today for free exclusively on GOG. The mod, which is DLC-sized at around 33.8GB, has been in the works for around five years, with a team of around 50 people and contributions from around 200 others. It’s also the first time the Fallout games have gone outside the U.S. (albeit unofficially) and the first Fallout-related video game release since Fallout 76 in 2018. The franchise is having a moment, though, thanks to the Fallout TV show, which was recently nominated for 16 Emmy awards. Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard has addressed recent concerns about Starfield’s paid mods, which echo long-standing issues between the company and its modding community. This debacle began with the launch of the Creation Kit, which dropped on Steam following the Xbox Games Showcase last week. This allows people to make new additions to the game — including Bethesda, which used it to market some new Trackers Alliance bounty-hunting missions. While the first one in the pack was offered for free, many fans expressed disappointment that the second mission was locked behind a $7 paywall in Creations. Imagine leaving a bad review on Steam only to log on one day and find that the creators of that game had responded. That’s exactly what’s been happening to Starfield players as of late. Currently saddled with a Mixed status derived from over 80,000 user reviews, Bethesda has gone into damage control mode to respond to its harshest critics. Reviews that call the game boring have been met with direct responses as the publisher explains that perhaps that’s the point. “Some of Starfield’s planets are meant to be empty by design — but that’s not boring,” one especially bold reply from Bethesda reads.