Game Changers - MOBILE (NEW)

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The creator, a mod scientist known only as Fancy Pants, initially sought to import The Room’s Tommy Wiseau into the blockbuster Bethesda game, but changed directions when he realized he had a cowboy hat and the late wrestler’s sound bites available for upload.

Macho Man Randy Dragon

Game: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Year Released: 2011

Left 4 Dead 2 is a nerve-wracking sprint through a world swarming with zombies. With the addition of a mod that turns all of the undead into Teletubbies, it crosses into perpetual nightmare territory.

Left 4 Teletubbies

Game: Left 4 Dead 2 Year Released: 2009

Created by the people behind Stockholm Pride, this mod lets players send an LGBTQ+ pride parade through the middle of the fictionaly city of Los Santos. After the 2016 tragedy in Orlando, its creators made the mod indestructible and impervious to interruption.

Los santos Pride

Game: Grand Theft Auto V Year Released: 2013

Imagine NBA2K14 reworked to pay homage to a wacky ‘90s basketball movie. Tons of gamers did just that, and via collaboration, created one of the strangest mods ever.

Space Jam 2k14

Game: NBA 2K14 Year Released: 2013

Why go on a blood-soaked, drug-fueled rampage as middle-aged thug named Michael when you can do it as Captain America? Fun, but definitely not canon.

Grand theft Avengers

Game: Grand Theft Auto V Year Released: 2013

Reportedly inspired by an Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind mod, which replaced the games sound effects with Tim Allen’s grunts, redditor MagusMarisa doubled down for this Doom mod. The results are… unsettling.

Everything is tim allen

Game: Doom Year Released: 1993

There’s well over 200 hours of gameplay tucked away inside The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. But that wasn’t enough for these modders, who added entirely new content and storylines (complete with voice acting and soundtracks), extending the game’s life far beyond its expiration date.

skyrim: lordbound

Game: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Year Released: 2011

Borderlands is a series known for its comic book style visuals. Fallout 4 is known for being the worst game in the Fallout universe. This mod lets you lay Borderlands’ visuals over Fallout 4’s mediocre gameplay.

Falloutlands 4

Game: Fallout 4 Year Released: 2015

Falloutlands 4

Skyrim: Lordbound

Everything is Tim Allen

Grand Theft Avengers

Space Jam 2K14

Los Santos Pride

Left 4 Teletubbies

Macho Dragon

Explore the Mods

Half-Life has been used as the base for several iconic mods, including one that eventually became the blockbuster game Counter-Strike.

Black Mesa (2012)

Half Life (1998)

We take a look at some of the great examples of video game mods, from the socially just to the expansive, and every deformed pop culture reference in between.

In the opening scene of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a massive, winged creature lands on a tower, raining fire down on the characters below. However, in this alternate version it’s not the dragon from the game trailers, but a deformed Randy “Macho Man” Savage terrorizing this fictional world. Welcome to gaming’s mod, mod, mod world. It’s in a gamer’s nature to bend rules wherever he or she finds them, to test the limits of any world they inhabit. But to truly break boundaries, they have to literally break code, and that’s what modding is all about—uploading code that alters how a game looks, feels, and plays. The possibilities are truly endless, the results are often baffling. Mods can drastically update an older game’s visual effects, like with Black Mesa, a fan-made version of Half-Life that was so good the creators of the original released it as an official remake. They can make games more inclusive, like the one that overrides Mass Effect’s heterosexual romance rules, or extend a game’s relevancy, like the ambitious coders who’ve created dozens of hours of additional gameplay for titles, importing entirely new storylines that are fully voice-acted and scored (read: Skyrim, released in 2011 and still kicking). And some (most?) are just bonkers, meeting somewhere between hilarious and disturbing.

The Wild, Weird World of Video Game Mods

Words by Alyssa Mercante Design by Martin Flores