Elden Ring launches, at the time of writing, in mere hours. It's been years since FromSoftware's next project, an open-world ARPG with a world created by George R. R. Martin, was announced, and the hype is reaching its peak. As the game finally comes out, many in the PC community are wondering what the modding situation will be like. In this article, we'll tell you everything you need to know about Elden Ring mods.
FromSoftware and Mods
Outside of some Bethesda games on console, mods exist almost entirely on PC. Though, with Steam Deck, a PC/console mobile hybrid device, modding is likely to branch out more and more from just the traditional PC space.
Nonetheless, if you're a console player of FromSoftware games, you'll probably only ever get to play the base game, but if you play on PC, there's a rich, vibrant modding community spread across all the modern FromSoftware games.
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Though, if you're a more serious modder, modding does exist in the console scene for FromSoftware games too, especially in the context of console-exclusive FromSoftware games like Bloodborne. However, this involves custom firmware, modded consoles, and a fair bit of technical know-how.
On PC, FromSoftware games have all kinds of mods. Total overhauls, graphical changes, challenging gauntlets, new mechanics, and much, much more are all available right now to download and play around with. On YouTube and Twitch, modded Dark Souls playthroughs are extremely common, especially with mods that amp up the challenge.
While FromSoftware games have a healthy modding community, FromSoftware is ironically not a developer that has ever really supported mods in an official capacity. Studios like CDPROJEKTRED or Bethesda Games build their games with mod support in mind, to an extent, and release modding tools to the community such that they can build mods easier.
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Other studios opt to support things like the Steam Workshop, which builds in a one-click solution right into Steam that you can browse and use to quickly and easily add mods to a game. This makes mods really easy to access and install and takes the headaches out of the process.
FromSoftware doesn't support the Steam Workshop in their games, and FromSoftware doesn't release big packages of modding tools to the community, either. Largely, they release their games, and then the community figures out how to effectively mod them.
It's less easy to create a mod for a FromSoftware game than it is, for example, a Bethesda game, but because the games are so successful and so popular, there's a lot of will out there to work on mods for these games.
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While less easy, mods for FromSoftware games get more and more advanced with each new game of theirs that comes out. In the beginning, mods were pretty limited in scope. Now, with Sekiro for example, there are mods to completely unlock the framerate on PC, which was once thought to be a hard-coded 60 FPS maximum lock.
Elden Ring Mods
The situation with mods for Elden Ring is going to be the same as it was for other FromSoftware games. It's the same engine and we can't reasonably expect modding tools from FromSoftware, so modding the game will be similarly difficult to what it's like with other FromSoftware games.
However, Elden Ring is a huge release, and millions are going to play it. By all accounts, Elden Ring will be more popular than Sekiro, which was more of a niche, focused experience, or even Bloodborne, because Elden Ring is coming to a huge number of platforms. So, with all the interest in the game, mods are inevitable.
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Though, it's important to remember that mods for Elden Ring will come slowly at first. When a game like Skyrim Special Edition was released, at launch 100s of mods appeared for download. When Elden Ring launches, there likely won't be any mods available, and as the days, weeks, and months go by, we'll start to see more and more mods over time.
Plus, we can likely only expect small mods, tiny tweaks, at first, and over time, like months and years, we can expect bigger overhauls and mods that change tons and tons about the game. All told, Elden Ring mods will come, but it's going to be something of a waiting game.
Elden Ring Mods, Multiplayer, and Bans
Mods when it comes to FromSoftware games' online component can get dicey. When playing offline, you're good to go. When you're just having fun by yourself, you're not going to get banned or risk anything by installing and using mods.
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However, the situation gets more complicated when playing online. FromSoftware, traditionally, isn't very transparent when it comes to bans. If you search around online you'll find stories of players getting banned for extremely minor offenses or even using mods that are completely okay to use online.
As with any FromSoftware game, if you're going to use mods and try to play online, you'll want to be careful with Elden Ring. What you'll want to do is wait for mods to come out and see if the mod creator or people who've used the mod have had experiences playing online.
Plus, it's important to remember that FromSoftware doesn't really officially endorse modding in any real sense, so technically speaking by using mods and playing online you're likely coloring outside the lines, so be careful. It's always safest to simply just use mods when playing offline, only.
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