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?
I would say the binding of Isaac. The game is amazing but I now really struggle to pay without some quality of life mods
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.
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.
A few off the top of my head: StarSector, ARMA, Monster Hunter (both World and Rise) and L4D(2). All of them are solid game already but modding adds so much value to an already good game.
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 😅.
Beat Saber. It wasn’t saved by mods, but almost any serious player will have a number of them installed to dramatically improve the experience. #beatSaber
The original Doom for sure. I don’t know if they count as mods since they’re technically running on a modified version of the engine, but there is still a massive community making maps, mods, and even new game modes for it. Most recently the “MyHouse.wad” map for it has exploded in popularity. I’ve had so much fun over the years with doom mods, it’s a treasure trove that most people have no idea exists.
There’s even entire new games built on Doom. Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart (stupid name, I know) is a fantastic free open source karting game with a decent community, and it’s technically just a doom mod.
If anyone here is going to play a single doom mod to see what’s up, I recommend Doom: The Golden Souls Remastered. It’s good fun.
original Doom has a lot of great mods for it
Coming up on 30 years!
