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?
TES3MP was an amazing experience for Morrowind.
All of the older Grand Theft Auto titles were saved by modding originally (ignoring the remade definitive edition trilogy of course) GTA III, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas, and even GTA IV were all released for older hardware and much different technology at the time they were released, so there’s some weirdness getting each of the games to run without issues or well on modern hardware and modern Windows. GTA IV specifically has a notoriously bad PC port that is at times hard to play without any mods or community made utilities.
All four games are substantially better with mods, from small things like restoring the original soundtracks for each of the games that have since been patched out due to licenses expiring, improving performance and stability, bug fixes, and even things like widescreen support. (Original GTA San Andreas specifically looks amazing with widescreen support and some other mods throw in)
My favorite mod currently is the GTA IV downgrader, found on GTAForums, it downgrades the version of your game, making it compatible with all of the most important utilities and mods made by the community.
I played vanilla Stardew Valley once, and now I’m on my second go around, and I’ve installed a bunch of qol mods so that I don’t have to keep checking the wiki and my collections to see if I should keep or sell this item I got because I don’t know if I need it for an achievement, and now I have a notification that it’s an NPC’s birthday and I can just check to see if I own or am carrying an item they have. It just makes the game less stressful for a completionist like me.
minecraft for sure
I don’t think anything comes close, Minecraft can be several different types of open world games just based of the modpack
Half of the problem IMO is Java edition runs so poorly mods are necessary to play the game most of the time. And there’s so many quality of life mods that should be base game but Mojang just doesn’t seem to care about.
Another vote for RimWorld, though I want to point out that the game is perfectly playable without mods, too. It is not uncommon to see someone with hundreds of mods, but the vanilla game is just as fun. People have logged thousands of hours without mods.
RimWorld. It’s amazing what people can do from QOL to whole new factions or weapons. Amazing and the dev is very helpful during updates to try and not break mod support. Just blown away.
Hell there are multiple mods that add whole new planets. I was so surprised that was even possible considering it seems like the game was made to only be able to handle one.
Definitely Minecraft, you can turn it into a completely different game
I know I’m a minority in this, but I unironically prefer vanilla Minecraft, it’s simple in a good way 😅.
Late to this post but to me it’s Minecraft. It has such an insane amount of replayability and can be turned into a totally different game depending on the mods and whatnot.
For sure, playing through Create: Astral with my partner atm. So many good modpacks out there that completely change the game
Thanks to you I discovered this modpack. It seems amazing!
Glad to hear it, I love the more mechanical approach to automation that Create has. Just built our first windmill
Rimworld. The Vanilla Expanded mods alone have more content than the base game + all the DLCs
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.
Fallout New Vegas for sure, although many of the issues were fixed by the devs over the lifespan of the game. Mods are pretty much vital to run that game properly, however. Many issues with the engine and many core bugs have been fixed by the community, and it’s honestly something where once you play with them fixed, it’s hard to go back
Seconding Rimworld, but even without mods it is an amazing game with easily 1k+ hours of gametime. My favorite mods are QoL mods, or ones that add additional flavor to my colonists. If I could only pick a single mod to install, ever, it would be Common Sense.
Outside of Bethesda and Minecraft, the other one that comes to mind is The Sims. More of a niche following, but for those that love deleting pool ladders, mods are necessary for happiness, flavor, and adding actual challenge.
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.
I got 500 hours in Factorio before tying mods, and over 2000 since (1000+ in an SE run alone). It’s been a year or so, maybe time to start up another game…
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.
Space Engineers the base game is great, but it comes to life with mods.
From simple things like a more immersive way to paint blocks or customised UI to to hole NPC Factions, new Weapons, dekorative Stuff, all the way to hole new physics systems like Water with flotation, Aerodynamics or re-entry heat.
I rarely play my games with mods, this game is one of the few exceptions. I even went so far as to create some very minor mods my self.
I had this game in my library for YEARS but every time I launched I just give up. Do you play multiplayer or alone?
Both actually. I have a server for a small group of friends and we play regularly together. It is our 4th save we started and this time we do some RP with some minor PvP.
But often I load up a creative world put some music on an just design ships or vehicles. It is like playing with virtual Lego with the benefit that you can blow it up afterwards.
I haven’t done it in some time but playing alone on a survival save game is enjoyable too, especially with said NPC and physics mods. Last year I played along with some YouTuber who shared is savegame.
But I have to admit that it’s hard to get into without a starting point. Not because it’s hard or complicated, because it is a complete sandbox without fixed goals.
Minecraft has a pretty solid vanilla experience but the depth of things you can do with mods is pretty insane. I’m playing a pack right now that basically turns it into a rogue like dungeon crawler.
Yeah, I love modpacks like Attack of the B-Team that add a ton of crazy technology and magic mods. Building massive pipe systems and assembly lines was always my favorite part of Minecraft