For whatever reason, Bethesda is still releasing patches and updates for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition. I mean, it’s great to see developers supporting their games even years later, but this version of Skyrim has been out for years and years now, and the company’s most recent update to the game has effectviely rendered most mods unusable. Perhaps this was one update too many, eh?

As reported by Exputer, the most recent update to Skyrim Special Edition has more or less broken most of the mods fans have made for the game over the years. The update was apparently aimed to add more support for Steam Deck and things like ultrawide monitors, nevermind that there are already tons of mods available for those things already.

The question is: why bother with it at this point? The last “full” release (if you can call a re-release “full”) came out several years ago now, and most problems that it may have had have already long been addressed by the modding community. Yet, here came Bethesda with an update anyway, one that just so happened to break nearly all fan-made content. Oops! (teehee)

Speculation seems to be that this is intentional on Bethesada’s part, with fans positing that the developer wants the modding community to move on from Skyrim and to start concentrating their support on Starfield instead, especially since that game’s official mod tools are due to arrive sometime early next year. While we will likely never know for sure, it’s not a bad theory. Starfield’s longterm prospects aren’t looking great at the moment, and a big part of that poor outlook is the fact that the modding community doesn’t seem at all interested in Starfield.

It’s understandable that Bethesda would want player and modders to move on to its newest product, but it doesn’t work that way. You can’t strongarm people into playing a game they’re not interested in, and you certainly can’t force people to do free work on your, I’ll just say it, very mediocre space game. If Bethesda is worried about Starfield’s future, then Bethesda should be the one taking the steps and filling the game with content that people actually want to play. They’ve been coasting on the backs of the modding community for over a decade now, and it ‘s looking like they’ve allowed themselves to become all too dependent on it.

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What’s your take on Starfield and the modding situation? How about Bethesda in general?

Image by Flickr user: JBLivin (cc)