Game Mods have the advantage of letting the players themselves add their own content to the game. Doing so may require some technical know-how at first, but over time, more tools become readily available to make modding the game more and more accessible.
As the modding community grows, however, it might get to a point where the mods themselves become more popular than the actual game they're for. They go from a fun distraction to an absolute necessity, since players find the game boring or inferior otherwise.
Playing the game without any mods (or "vanilla", as it's commonly referred as) is still a perfectly valid option though, and there's plenty of good reasons as to why. Modding can be a hassle at times, and you might risk breaking something if you do something wrong. Some people might find the mods too immersion-breaking or just prefer to play the game exactly as the developers intended.
Examples
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Eastern RPGs
- EarthBound Beginnings is looked at by most fans as a historical curiosity at most, seeing considerable attention for its status as the first game in the series but also deterring many prospective players away with its high difficulty, which the developers themselves admitted was the result of them not having enough time to properly balance the game. Consequently, a number of "easy mode" ROM hacks emerged over the years in an attempt to make the game more accessible to newcomers, mostly by increasing the amount of experience and money earned from battles.
- While Kingdom Hearts III is generally considered a decent game on its own, the release of its PC port resulted in a surprisingly robust modding scene. Many mods aim to fix issues that fans have with the combat and UI, although other popular mods include making the Kingdom Hearts III: Re𝄌Mind characters playable outside of their specific boss battles, making bosses playable, or customizing the appearances of Sora and bosses to reimagine fights from previous and other games.
Fighting Games
- Rivals of Aether on its own would have been a solid Platform Fighter, but one more appreciated by the competitive community than the casual player. That is, until the game got Steam Workshop support, allowing people to create their own characters and stages to be added into the game, effectively turning the game into a M.U.G.E.N-like game. The game even got an update that added four of the Workshop characters as official fighters.
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a very Contested Sequel amongst fans of the Super Smash Bros. series due to it being slower and more casual-oriented compared to its predecessors. Despite this, the game was still fairly popular because it was pretty easy to hack and create mods for. Project M in particular got a lot of attention, completely overhauling Brawl's game engine to make it closer to Super Smash Bros. Melee, as well as adding new characters and content. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate also have pretty sizable modding communities, but are generally less popular due to their respective consoles being harder to crack open.
- Super Smash Bros. Crusade is a well-done fangame in its own right that has received successive updates over its lifespan to make it even better. However, as of the 0.9 versions, one of its claims to fame is its friendliness to modding, which has made the game a viable (and free) competitor to Rivals of Aether as the "Platform Fighter M.U.G.E.N" The extensive modpack CMC+ is particularly impressive for having over 200 fighters total!
- Since the return of the franchise in 3D during The New '10s and their releases on PC, the Street Fighter games became subject of the mods, mostly Street Fighter IV, its sequel Street Fighter V and even the crossover Street Fighter X Tekken, where the mods are basically giving new looks to characters that Capcom didn't (and won't) do it as the fans wanted, but also to make some new things, like putting characters from other Capcom games that deserved to be in SF (like converting Zangief into Haggar or Ryu into Batsu), new costumes from other games (like Cody and Guy getting their outfits from Final Fight: Streetwise), making "crossover costumes" (like converting Chun-li into Mai Shiranui) or even go further with the NSFW costumes for (mostly) women with little swimsuits, sexy cosplays or directly make them Full-Frontal Assault.
First-Person Shooters
- One of the many criticisms of Aliens: Colonial Marines was the infamously poor AI of the eponymous aliens. Turns out, the AI was a lot worse than it was supposed to be due to a simple typo in one of the game's script files, which misspelled "tether" and "teather" and fixing that typo makes the AI much more serviceable. Neither the AI nor the game is perfect by any means with this fix, but it's a major improvement.
- Deus Ex has a few noticeable mods under its belt that help enhance the base game, whether it be the Revision, GMDX or Shifter Mods.
- One of the earliest examples of this was Doom and Doom II. Though both games are still highly enjoyable on their own, both became extremely popular amongst modders due to the tools for creating custom WADs being made readily available, and the WADs themselves usually being small in size, making them easy to distribute. John Carmack's release of the Doom engine's source code in 1997, followed by the influx of limit-removing source ports and modern map editors, has only seen the community flourish with bigger and more bombastic mods nearly 30 years on, ranging from mapsets so vanilla-friendly they can be run on DOSBox to complete overhauls like Brutal Doom/Project Brutality or Hideous Destructor, or total conversions like Ashes 2063 or The Adventures of Square that stray so far from Doom as to be their own individual games.
- Half-Life and particularly its sequel, though still respected on their own merits, have become notorious for the many, many mods created from the latter's Source engine. A few of these mods, including Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable, even spun off to become published standalone games in their own right.
- Jurassic Park: Trespasser was a pioneering game that had the misfortune of being rushed out the door before it could be finished, and even then, it was an Obvious Beta it was still too graphically intense to run on most PCs at the time. A modding community has sprung up to try and create a more complete version of the game.
- Much like its predecessor Doom, Quake was also host to a notable modding community even upon release, especially since id Software packaged the game with the QuakeC programming language & QuakeEd level editor free for all players to use. Besides famously having spawned Valve Software's Source Engine lineage, similar advents of source ports, modern mapping tools and even updates to the QuakeC code courtesy of the 2021 Quake remaster have burgeoned a robust modding community just as its forebearer has.
- All three of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are known for being reliant on mods to make them much more playable and enjoyable, due to the games themselves suffering from serious cases of Obvious Beta in their vanilla state.
- Sonic Robo Blast 2 on its own is a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame using Doom engine, but the game itself has given birth to modded content such as Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart and Sonic Robo Blast 2 Persona, with the former being able to compete with the main game itself.
- Unlike Valve's official casual and competitive servers for Team Fortress 2, the fan-made community servers usually come with mods, which has garnered them a bit of a reputation for their craziness and silly antics. Depending on the server, some enable the player to fire an infinite amount of Critical Hit while falling in zero gravity, play as ponies, run through a death maze made out of Minecraft blocks while another person triggers traps (Death Run), fight a giant one-eyed Scotsman wearing an Easter Bunny suit (Vs. Saxton Hale), or run away in terror from a Chimera as a Pig Mask (Chimera Hunt). On the flip side, some servers have made only minor changes in order to replicate the gameplay in the official servers but with much-needed balance changes such as disabling critical hits, which is the case with Uncletopia servers.
- The Unreal series has been infamous for its huge modding scene, if the sole existence of UT-Files
, UT Zone, UTCC and especially the massive Unreal Archive are anything to go by. The general consensus is that, while the base game is OK, mods make a better experience. As for mods that became full-fledged games, you have Alien Swarm, Killing Floor and Red Orchestra.
Platformers
- Sonic Adventure DX:Director's Cut
- The 2003 PC release of SADX has been a long standing hub for the 3D Sonic modding community due to being relatively easy to figure out and mod for. Hundreds of texture mods, audio swaps, model swaps and level and layout mods have been produced over the years with more recent developments even extending to implementing new mechanics and functions and even importing models and animations from other games. While the Steam release sees a lot more attention nowadays, there are still those who prefer to use the 2003 release of the game as their base point and even mods for said Steam release that downgrade it back into a state similar to the 2003 release.
- The Steam release of Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut is generally considered a Porting Disaster due to having downgraded visuals and additional bugs, thanks to being a port several consoles removed from the original release. This version, however, is the most ideal for modding — a mod called "Dreamcast Conversion" returns the game to its original state by reverting the visuals and fixing the bugs, while other mods such as "BetterSADX" include extra upgrades like running at proper 60 FPS in full widescreen, restoring the Dreamcast version's Downloadable Content, and adding extra features like Super Sonic and new levels. These mods create what is considered to be the definitive version of Sonic Adventure.
- Sonic Generations is behind only Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut as being one of the most heavily modded 3D Sonic games available. While the base game was on the short side with only 9 zones at 2 acts per zone in the base game, there are countless mods to import new levels, new playable characters, and even new game modes and mechanics with the most notable one of them all being Sonic Generations Unleashed and its various branches which go through the effort of importing nearly every single Daytime stage from Sonic Unleashed into Generations. This is without mentioning all the various graphics and performance-changing mods that can both optimize the game to run on weaker hardware or inversely re-activate the original Sonic Unleashed version of the rendering engine and more allowing for significantly more, higher quality lighting and shadow effects that can make the already lush base game levels look absolutely stunning, on par with games released for PS4 or beyond.
Puzzle Games
- Chip's Challenge has enjoyed a very robust modding community, with fans working on the game's engine to design their own sets of levels and showcase a wide array of difficulty and creativity. The most popular levels were voted and assembled into Level Packs. The original game alone amassed four such packs.
- While the vanilla version of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes has proven to be very popular, most experienced players find the limited selection of module puzzles to be too easy. There is a very strong modding community that provides harder and more varied challenges, allowing the game's replay value to extend for ages.
Racing Games
- The Mario Kart series has an active modding scene in general, providing custom tracks, new characters, and original game mechanics to the fray. Mario Kart Wii in particular is incredibly active, with several quality-of-life improvements, the return of the feather item, online races being restored after the official servers shut down, and an extensive number of tracks with enough polish to compete with the main game. CTGP, a distribution with over 200 additional tracks, is relatively easy to install and gets serviced regularly. The older entries have their fair share of mods as well, with Mario Kart DS having its fair share of custom tracks and characters. Come the entries succeeding Wii however, you'll find fewer mods as a result of the consoles being harder to crack open.
- ReVolt is kept alive through its highly dedicated modding community, to the point where the game is fully playable on modern machines with multiplayer content packs that far exceed the contents of the standard game in both quality and quantity — to say nothing of the thousands of modded-in tracks and cars that exist outside of that.
Real-Time Strategy
- Blizzard Entertainment's RTS titles — namely Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Starcraft II, have had a robust modding community thanks to the power of their map editors. As a matter of fact, the Tower Defense and MOBA genre first started as custom maps for these games.
- The Command & Conquer series, especially Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals, and Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. In particular, due to the ability to modify unit files and insert new ones, complete with their own sprites or models, upwards of adding entire new factions, makes it perhaps the most triumphant example in the RTS genre, up to and including full-conversion mods like Command & Conquer: Generals Evolution, which is a full recreation of Generals in the engine of Red Alert 3, and narrative-driven products that could arguably be full games in their own right like Mental Omega and the currently in-progress Rise of the Reds, to say nothing of the dozens of smaller multiplayer-focused mods like Tiberian Essence, Operation Firestorm, Contra, or Shockwave.
- Hearts of Iron 4 is a good game in its own right, but it wouldn't be as popular without its many mods, some of which are so popular that they get mods in their own right. Alternate histories like Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg and The New Order: Last Days of Europe, or even alternate universes entirely like Equestria at War and Old World Blues, are good examples of this.
- Master of Orion 3 coded an incredible amount of its game data in easy-to-modify spreadsheets. Given the number of Game Breaking Bugs and incredibly odd mechanics in general, many players found a modded game the only playable version.
- In general, for every Total War game released, savvy players know it's only a matter of time before a bunch of modders get together to put together and release a mod that aims to correct any historical inaccuracies and gameplay issues.
Roguelikes
- The Binding of Isaac has thousands upon thousands of mods in the Steam Workshop, ranging from meme sprite swaps to assistance tools that actually tell you what the item you're picking up does to entirely new characters to full-on separate expansions like Antibirth and Abortionbirth. Antibirth was so high-quality and beloved by Afterbirth+ players that it was incorporated into the final official expansion, Repentance. Of course, Isaac is already a very long and difficult game without mods, and Sturgeon's Law definitely applies, so players may have to do some sifting before they find some mods that they both like and are useful.
- Darkest Dungeon has a collective seven years of mods ready for the player to download, some of which are high-quality enough to be unofficially labelled "free DLC" by the fanbase. Especially noteworthy are The Sunken City Collection, since it's on par with the base game in terms of quality and was good enough to get its creator Marvin Seo a job at Red Hook Studios, and Black Reliquary, which is effectively "Darkest Dungeon 1.5" and is an entirely separate campaign equivalent in length and difficulty to the base game. One of the more contentious aspects of the sequel's switch to 2½D was that it basically killed any chance of that game having a gigantic modding scene like the first since 3D models are much harder to work with than 2D sprites.
- Risk of Rain 2 is very mod-supportive, having not only new characters and levels, but also making the game even more challenging in different ways and sharing items between players. There are also a few more mundane quality of life mods, such as speeding up the process of scrapping and printing items.
Rhythm Games
- Beat Saber: A large portion of the player base uses mods to install and play custom songs, compete with each other on mod-based leaderboards, and change visuals and features in the game.
- Friday Night Funkin':
- Friday Night Funkin's major claim to fame is its open source nature, meaning it is extremely easy to mod with whatever one may desire; as a result of that and the long development time of the base game, the community mainly thrives off these mods, to the point many fan characters are loved just as much as the original cast.
- The pre-Kickstarter builds of the game had a bad problem with delays in the note inputs, causing many fan engines fixing this problem to crop up, like the Kade Engine or the Psych Engine. The Psych Engine, in particular, is a favorite due to the extra features it adds, such as achievements and a song timer.
Sandbox Games
- Garry's Mod enforces this trope very heavily, with the base game being extremely light on content unless the user has other Source Engine games installed. The game was also updated with Steam Workshop integration in 2012, which greatly streamlined the way mods for the game are distributed.
- Kerbal Space Program has a huge and active modding community that adds or edits any kind of content you can imagine — life support mechanics, new planets and solar systems, near-future propulsion technologies like the Orion Drive, enormous cities (and city lights) on Kerbin, etc. Some of the graphical mods are so good that in-game screenshots have sometimes been used by media outlets by mistake.
- Minecraft is well-known for its modding community. Moreso the original Java version, mostly due to Java simply being easy to write code for. Bedrock Edition is also modded quite a bit, but is somewhat more restrictive, as mods for Bedrock Edition can only add things to the game, not edit what's already there. And while installing mods is much simpler in Bedrock Edition, the modding community tends to lock them behind paywalls. Though the Java version has its own downsides as well.
- Saints Row 2 had a PC release notorious for being a big Porting Disaster. A group of fans, however, came together to create Gentlemen Of The Row, a massive mod dedicated to fixing the issues of the port, and then adding some extra content on top. Many people who worked on the mod were later hired by Volition in recognition of their efforts.
- Terraria has a very well-known modding community, to the point that tModLoader, Terraria's modding API is implemented in Steam as a separate application. Mods can range from tiny changes such as aesthetic changes, to complete content mods that completely overhaul game progression. In addition, several prominent Re-Logic employees (such as Yoraiz0r and Grox the Great) got their start in Terraria modding.
Simulation Games
- Cities: Skylines has extensive Steam Workshop support, allowing players to upload custom assets, maps, and even entire mods. Combine this with a common perception of the game's default assets and other features being bland and/or incomplete, and it's rather uncommon to see dedicated players playing the game fully vanilla.
- Factorio has a massive modding community, encouraged by the developers building a mod portal into the game. Even players who don't play the large overhaul mods will often have a set of quality-of-life mods they use and consider integral to the game.
- The Microsoft Flight Simulator series was built around this, with the default game providing a bare-bones world and developers stepping up to provide more detailed options. Indeed, it was the dropping by the developers of modability which provoked Fanon Discontinuity.
- Orbiter has been described as a framework on which mods can be installed.
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 was, for all intents and purposes, the primary theme park sandbox from its 2004 launch until its spiritual successor Planet Coaster replaced it over a decade later. This time, partially due to the long wait, a massive library of custom objects has built up in this time. Custom scenery is particularly popular, as it allows for realistic supports, less boxy design, quarter-tile precision (as opposed to full tile), and almost no restrictive collision. For dedicated players, it's common for a park to have more imported items than vanilla.
- While The Sims series is playable in its own right, many players are not satisfied with the limited selections of hairstyles, clothes, furniture, and what have you—especially since the main appeal of the game is to be able to create your idealized home/life. There are multiple Sims fan sites and communities that are dedicated to creating and sharing custom content, including game mods that allow players to perform actions normally impossible in regular gameplay. The Sims 3 in particular is a game that, thanks to its poor optimization causing the frame rate to slow to a crawl after sufficient play time, is often put in the Bethesda category of a game where performance mods are necessary to get the most out of it.
- Spore: Mods typically address some of the original game's issues by expanding the Character Customization options or adding Anti-Frustration Features like faster cooldowns on certain attacks/weapons.
- Stardew Valley has a very large and dedicated modding community, with a ton of mods that add quality-of-life improvements or introduce new mechanics. Some mods are at such a scale that they could be considered full-blown unofficial expansions, like Stardew Valley Expanded and Ridgeside Village that add more NPCs, quests and storylines. Many players say that they always play the game with mods installed.
- Transport Tycoon Deluxe has still an active modding community even though it can only be played in an emulator.
- Though Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator has some novelty value as a standalone product — especially with more updates ' the introduction of mods, including popular characters from more or less every franchise under the sun, allowed fans to turn the game into a real The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
Tower Defense
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time has a large and active modding community, and its players often consider one mod or another to be outright superior to the base game. Most mods will rebalance the Game-Breaker plants, make levels last longer, make formerly-premium plants available for free, and add new levels, but some go so far as to add entirely new plants and zombies to keep the experience fresh. Mods will also sometimes make the progression more linear, preventing the peculiar difficulty curve the original had.
Visual Novels
- Doki Doki Literature Club! has an active modding community with multiple mods written that range from a "normal" visual novel to more abuse than the characters go through in the original game.
Western RPGs
- Dink Smallwood is an okay game on its own, but its Level Editor allows players to create entire scenarios (Called Dink Modules or D-Mods), some of which can be even bigger and more impressive than the base game. It's managed to attract a cult following that's still actively making new D-Mods decades after the game's release.
- Many games from Bethesda Softworks such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout have extensive modding communities, and many players of the games will have at least a few mods installed simply to fix the numerous bugs that invariably plague Bethesda products or add quality-of-life features that aren't present in the vanilla game. This is aided by the fact that Bethesda releases the same Level Editor they use for creating the games (the Construction Set for TES, the G.E.C.K. for Fallout, and the Creation Kit for both series from Skyrim onward) for modders to use.
- The much requested PC port of Dark Souls 1 initially left a lot to be desired, mostly because it was locked at 720p and 30 FPS. Most players will install at least one mod that fixes these issues.
- It was no secret that Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords was notorious for being rushed in development and suffered poorly for it. The Restored Content Mod which included a lot of cut content has many players give it another chance.
- Mass Effect has a huge modding community, ranging from simple quality-of-life changes like fixing glitches or adding buttons to activate events at your own pace to full-blown new gear pieces, content adjustments, and the ever-famous Happy Ending Mod that overrides all the Multiple Endings of Mass Effect 3 to give a proper Earn Your Happy Ending instead of being different flavors of Bittersweet Ending.
- Both Neverwinter Nights and sequel were conceived as "Dungeons & Dragons on your PC", which could be used by DM to create campaigns.
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, while a good game, is known for its Game Breaking Bugs, so many of its most popular mods heavily patch the game while adding in some new features such as the ability to join the Sabbat.
