Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming first-person RPG Avowed is one of the most anticipated titles for the Xbox Series X. Many RPG fans are hoping that the game could be the “next Skyrim,” just as Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds gave many Fallout fans their fix after the disappointing reception of Fallout 76.
However, to succeed to the same extent as Skyrim will not be an easy task. The Elder Scrolls 5 sold 20 million copies between 2011 and 2014 and has maintained players on Steam throughout the 2010s. It is Skyrim’s modding community that has been absolutely vital to the game’s longevity, and Obsidian will need to make sure its accommodating of Avowed‘s modding community in some key ways.
Bethesda released Skyrim in November 2011, but modding the game became significantly more accessible in February 2012 with the release of the Creation Kit. The Creation Kit is an external program which gives modders easy access to the game’s core mechanics, items, and NPCs, making modding far easier. Bethesda also released a Wiki with guides on how to use the kit.
This helped grow Skyrim‘s already large modding community. Mods were created for everything from fixing minor annoyances and bugs to expanding cities and adding huge add-on quest lines to Skyrim. Players looking to spice up their game can find hundreds of videos online categorizing the best Skyrim mods and showing off their features.
When Bethesda released the Skyrim Special Edition, the developer also made sure that the new version supported modding on PS4 and the Xbox One at launch. While a lot of the Skyrim mods are aimed at PC users, Avowed will be on the Xbox Series X, helping to launch the console. Although it will also release on PC, many players will be playing Avowed on the new Xbox, so Obsidian will need to make sure that modding is available on the console for free at launch (or at least soon thereafter).
When The Outer Worlds was released on the Xbox One, modding was made available, but a Creation Kit-style program wasn’t. As a result, The Outer Worlds‘ modding community never grew as big as it could have. While Skyrim released with clunky combat and plenty of bugs, the modding community helped fix some of those most common complaints, while issues that arose with The Outer Worlds like simplistic companion AI were harder to resolve.
The Outer Worlds may have provided a fresh take on the Fallout formula, but by not taking the modding community into greater consideration, the game has many of the same problems as Bethesda games while making it harder for players to fix them. For example, The Outer Worlds could have looked to the Fallout and Skyrim modding communities and noted the popularity of mods that made the genre’s clunky combat smoother, and how those mods achieved that.
Avowed will need to launch with a Creation Kit or release one very soon after launch in order to enjoy the same long-term success as an Elder Scrolls game. Furthermore, Obsidian should look to the modding community to include some of the innovative ways that players have increased immersion, improved combat, and modded AI in Skyrim.
Fortunately for Obsidian, Bethesda has also failed to learn some vital lessons from the modding community. Among the most downloaded mods for Skyrim included those that gave players alternate introductions to increase roleplaying opportunities and slick survival modes. Despite this, Fallout 4 not only gave the player character a far more pre-set backstory, but the game’s Survival mode was not added until 6 months after release to replace the underdeveloped survival difficulty in the game at launch.
If Avowed accommodates and encourages modding not only will it likely enjoy longer-lasting success, but Obsidian could capitalize on the community that has been waiting in vain for The Elder Scrolls 6‘s release. Encouraging the growth of a modding community from day one could help make Avowed the immersive RPG experience fans have been waiting for.
Avowed is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.
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