All Mod Consoles: What Console Mods Means for the Fallout Modding Community
Despite heavy rumors of its inclusion ahead of E3 this year, Bethesda’s reveal of Fallout 4 at its inaugural press conference still set the proverbial gaming world on fire. Tucked away neatly towards the end of Todd Howard’s more rushed presentation at Microsoft’s conference, was the mostly overlooked announcement that Fallout 4 would support free mods like its PC counterpart—at least on Xbox One. The inclusion of modding on consoles comes with a unique question born of uncertainty: Will the community rooted in the PC space even bother to support a new and significantly different platform?
With the need for fan involvement, providing mods for the console version of Fallout 4 isn’t something Bethesda can guarantee. Regardless of the monolithic publisher’s efforts, the success of the feature rests squarely on the shoulders of a community that has little investment in the platform supporting it. While the concept of modding is inexorably linked to the PC, the good news is most modders are open to supporting consoles.
“I can’t think of a reason to not support consoles, unless it adds a lot of time to the dev cycle,” says the creator of Skyrim’s Immersive Armors add-on, who goes by the name of hothtrooper44 (Hoth) on the popular modding site Nexus Mods. “Then I would need to weigh out the added time it takes. People will support it because modding is about bringing happiness to people who play games, and venting your creative ideas[sic].”
Agreement about what support will look like, and the effect it will have on the community, unfortunately ends with mods making it to the consoles. Modder NMC, who created some of the most popular texture mods for recent Bethesda games, says he’s excited about Bethesda’s continued innovation in modding. While NMC’s most popular creations might not be as spectacular when scaled down to a form that doesn’t over-exert consoles already being pushed to their limits, he and others believe many popular mod types should be unaffected.
The biggest hurdle for the console space is script extenders, a type of modification that allows modders to insert new code into games. Though not necessary for all mods, script extenders for Bethesda’s more recent games have played a vital role in some of the series’ biggest mods. Right now, the inclusion of a script extender in the console version of Fallout 4 appears unlikely.
“[Fallout 4 Script Extender] for consoles is almost certainly out of the question,” says Stephen Abel, a member of the team behind script extenders for the last three major Bethesda RPGs. “Due to the more restrictive nature of the console environment, both in terms of code and the platform owners, I don’t see any possibility of modifications that introduce new code onto the consoles.”
If the tightly closed nature of modern consoles wasn’t already enough of a problem, past experiences with outside interference means console manufacturers are already skittish about the concept. Sony struggled with exploits on both the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, eventually removing Linux “OtherOS” support from the latter due to security concerns. Microsoft’s constant battle with Xbox 360s that used the JTAG exploit, to insert code allowing everything from hacking Call of Duty lobbies to playing pirated games, began in the console’s infancy and continued for years. Bethesda could potentially work with modders to support more ambitious mods, but they’ll likely have their hands full fixing bugs and working on the game’s official modding tools instead.
Lack of script extending mods, or alternative support from Bethesda, means some mods might not make their way to console. What mods will be supported in lieu of that feature depends first on how Bethesda structures distribution through their Bethesda.net service. If Bethesda limits Fallout 4’s console mods to just the primary installation files, it could “make certain types of mods like overhauls or massive texture replacers… difficult or impossible to deploy,” according to Abel.