Top 10 Most Modded Video Games

A popular platform for modders to this day thanks to its huge popularity and wide appeal, EA’s world war 2 shooter is still a great option for anyone looking to experiment with the format for perhaps the first time. Early efforts may have focused on simple content updates or texture packs, but worldwide exposure of the scene following publications in some of the biggest gaming magazines of the mid 2000s encouraged the developers to help the community along by releasing powerful, relatively simple toolkits that give access to everything from source codes to scripting commands that are still just as capable as ever in helping you craft the shooter you’ve always dreamed of.

In a time where most RTS games came built in with map editors, this cold war focused title made the brave decision to eschew that trend and still has never formally released any official tools to aid in the customization of their cult classic. Despite this potentially devastating drawback, there have been an enormous amount of fantastic mods supporting the title ranging from a few new units to entire new campaigns. The reliance on learning a bunch of third party software to create your dream scenarios means there’s a higher barrier to entry than some other titles, but we feel that the power and flexibility these tools offer is well worth the effort.

With Vice City’s jump to the third dimension of gaming, Rockstar’s open world crime series rapidly became one of the premiere targets of the modding community that hasn’t let up since. Mods can be done as easily as opening up one of the plain text files containing the source code and fiddling around to your heart’s desire, or as complicated as learning some of the hundreds of tools available online that continue to evolve with the series. And fear not if you’re a console player, as third party applications like the USB Save Editor let you change as little or as much as you want on PC before bringing the whole experience back to your living room Xbox.

There’s a couple of familiar names that are notoriously strict with their IP’s (we’re looking at you Nintendo), and then there’s good guy Bethesda. The gaming giant has gone all out in extending the olive branch to modders over the course of their history, and their post-apocalyptic shooter is no exception. While they may not always outright provide the source codes to their titles, official toolkits like the G.E.C.K or script extenders are easy to use and immensely powerful, allowing alteration of any of the game’s data or even creating new ones. Packaged all together with the support of the steam community, it’s easy to see why these titles are so heavily revisited.

Real time strategy games have a long lineage of extensive modding, and Blizzard’s Warcraft 3 carried on the trend. While not usually the most powerful creation tools, map editors are a great way to get started playing around with different game assets, and the built in World Editor manages to go a long way in allowing gamers the opportunity to build their own extensive campaigns. With the legions of fans that still provide and update tutorials to the community to this day, it’s easy to see why something like the DOTA mod is of a high enough quality to inspire a whole new genre of gaming.

Another Bethesda title, this entry comes from a celebrated history of open world adventure modifications. Continuing the pattern they established throughout the rest of the series, this entry brings modders both old and new together to celebrate their love for homebrew content. Official editors are once again available for download, along with handy tutorials for anyone looking to break into the scene. Longtime veterans pushed the envelope even further however by digging up the game’s underlying code, allowing anyone who feels capable access to create whole new adventures from the ground up. One of the most experienced modding communities around along with a growing familiarity with the engine and its capabilities means unlimited possibilities.

Perhaps spawning the mod-making culture of first person shooters in the early 90s, id Software’s influential release was designed for customization from the get-go and has seen thousands of mods over the years. Focusing on upgrading everything from gameplay to graphics, modders can import their own data to the game by making use of the WAD system of file management to bring in new sprites, art assets, or music without ever touching the core engine. While fun on its own merit, anyone looking for a little extra power has full access to the source code running the engine, and the most popular mods like Brutal Doom take full advantage of this, pushing the aging title to its absolute limit.

If Bethesda is revered by fans for their relationship to the community, then Valve is definitely the king of developers. While they may only have released their Source SDK in the mid 2000s, the Steam patriarch has a long history of supporting and encouraging the development of new mods by publishing some of the most successful efforts like Counter-Strike as full-fledged releases, themselves having gone on to spawn successful franchises. Managing to keep this gaming classic relevant for two decades, enthusiasts have since released their own development kits complete with engines for those who have difficulty coding their own. It may not be the most popular development platform nowadays, but it’s accessible, deep, and evidently potentially financially viable.

Originally itself a Half-Life mod that later became its own standalone sandbox release, this cult world builder comes with its own physics engine and easy to operate tool gun which gives gamers the core functionality to make modding easy and fun for all experience levels. With an extensive wiki of tutorials demonstrating how to navigate the sea of code, anyone who wants to experiment customizing the title will quickly find an abundance of resources available. Factor in the preloaded game assets and gamers can make anything from new Portal puzzles to game modes centered on stalking and killing their latest victims without even breaking a sweat.

Making a moddable game is easier said than done. Communities flock to interesting titles with huge player bases that allow them to imagine and implement as many things as they see fit, and Mojang’s absolutely massive sandbox game hits all the criteria. A little familiarity with Javascript will go a long way into crafting your blocky utopia, but if that’s still too daunting, third party software like MCreator do all the heavy lifting for you, allowing you to edit names, UI elements, textures, items and world elements all from the same client and let you flex your creative muscles. As simple or complex as gamers want to make it, Minecraft is hands down the most moddable game.