Summary

• The recent Skyrim update merging the Creation Club with the mod browser could lead to the introduction of paid mods for Starfield.
• The introduction of the Verified Creator Program allows mod creators to release paid mods after being vetted. Although no official plans for Starfield have been announced, Bethesda is eager to bring the program to as many games as possible.
• Paid mods have long been contentious, and their potential introduction to Starfield may disrupt its fledgling modding community.

Although Starfield's modding community is still continuing to grow after the game's relatively recent release, a new Skyrim update could already be spelling trouble for the game's future mods. Open-world RPGs made by Bethesda have a relatively long history of modding, with games from The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series boasting some of the most high-profile modding communities in the entire gaming industry. Ranging from community-made fixes, to quality-of-life UI changes, to entirely new content, mods for many Bethesda RPGs tend to enhance the games they're for to a new level, allowing players to change their experience to suit their own needs.

While all of Bethesda's more modern RPGs have modding communities to some extent, the biggest and most well-known is still for Skyrim, which boasts over 120,000 mods on Nexus Mods alone, split across the original game and the Special Edition (although there is undoubtedly a large amount of overlap between the two). By comparison, there are drastically fewer mods for Starfield - around 6,000 on Nexus Mods - but this is almost certainly more due to the difference in release date than any other factor. Still, while Starfield's library of -made mods is quickly growing, a new update regarding the mods of Skyrim might spell trouble for the newer Bethesda RPG's future mods.

A New Paid Mod System In Skyrim Could Mean Trouble For Starfield

As reported by PCGamer, the most recent patch for Skyrim Special Edition, has merged the game's Creation Club feature with the integrated mod browser, bringing them both under the umbrella of what Bethesda is now referring to as Creations. At the same time, Bethesda has also introduced the new Verified Creator Program, which, similarly to the Creation Club, allows for some mod creators to release paid mods after being itted to the program. While no concrete plans to bring the program to Starfield have been officially announced, the FAQ on the Bethesda's website regarding Creations notes that the developer/publisher is "excited to bring the Verified Creator Program to as many games as possible."

In a separate, but related issue, the Skyrim patch also broke one of the game's most prominent and important mods, the Skyrim Script Extender, or SKSE. As a huge number of Skyrim mods are reliant on SKSE to work, this had a cascading effect, breaking numerous other mods and causing further backlash. Fortunately, the mod was quickly fixed to work with the new patch by the team behind SKSE, but the inconvenience caused by the new update has contributed significantly to the negative sentiment from the community.

Skyrim's History With Paid Mods

Notably, the new update and introduction of the Verified Creator Program isn't the first time that paid mods have been introduced to Skyrim. In 2015, paid mods were briefly made available through the Steam Workshop, with Valve making the initial announcement. The introduction of paid mods was met with considerable backlash at the time, resulting in the release of several satirical mods mocking the decision onto the Workshop. Ultimately, the decision was rolled back shortly after it was introduced, with both Valve and Bethesda acknowledging the overwhelmingly negative reception from the community.

Two years later, the idea was introduced to Skyrim again, albeit in a much more limited fashion. The Creation Club for Skyrim Special Edition, which officially launched in October 2017, introduced Creations - essentially mods approved and curated by Bethesda, which could be bought with a paid currency called CC Credits. Although this decision also received criticism, the overall backlash was considerably smaller than the 2015 Steam Workshop attempt, in part because of the more limited selection of paid mods. Notably, Creation Club was also implemented in Fallout 4, the most recently released Bethesda RPG at the time, at around the same period.

A major benefit of the Creation Club is the ability to mods for Skyrim and Fallout 4 on console.

How Paid Mods Might Affect Starfield

If successful, it's likely that the Verified Creator Program will spread from Skyrim Special Edition to other Bethesda RPGs, which would eventually result in the introduction of paid mods to Starfield - likely to coincide with or follow after the release of official modding tools for the game, planned for 2024. While Starfield already has high-quality mods, the potential introduction of a paid mod system to the game raises some concerns for its future, especially regarding how it's post-launch might shake out. Already, the less restrictive paid mod system laid out by the Verified Creator Program has reminded some players of the 2015 Steam Workshop paid mods for Skyrim.

One notable concern has to do with a specific type of mod - namely, modded-in bug fixes and missing features. As expansive and ambitious as Bethesda's RPGs are, they also tend to have a lot of glitches or notably missing features on launch. Starfield, for example, was missing DLSS on launch, but the feature was modded in relatively quickly. As a result, some concerns surrounding paid mods for Starfield center around the idea that players might have to pay for what are essentially fixes to the game that should be implemented for free. While this is relatively unlikely, as pre-existing examples from the Creation Club for Skyrim and Fallout 4 have all centered around entirely new content, the concern is still present.

Additionally, while creators of mods deserve the opportunity to make money off of their work, other concerns have been raised over the specific involvement of Bethesda in the process. Where some mod creators might make some revenue through voluntary donations, either on platforms like Patreon or through other means, paid mods in a Bethesda storefront, like in Skyrim Special Edition, would mean that a split of the revenue goes to Bethesda - creating the perception that the Verified Creator Program is a grab by the company for more influence over the modding scene and more profit from it.

While the Verified Creator Program, and the Creation Club before it, may offer an avenue for some mod creators to make more money off their work than they otherwise could, players are still wary of Bethesda's involvement, and of the monetization of an aspect of games that has traditionally been free. Paid mods are a contentious subject, and with the Verified Creator Program very likely to make its way over to Starfield, the still-growing modding community of Bethesda's newest RPG could be facing a big shake-up in its near future.

Sources: PC Gamer, SKSE