When Bethesda released the trailer for Skyrim for the Nintendo Switch at E3 2017, the internet was ablaze with joy. Skyrim, the fifth installment in the long-running Elder Scrolls franchise, has been hailed as one of the best RPGs of the modern gaming generation. Much like the Fallout games, Skyrim has had quite a long lifespan and it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.
First released in 2011 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows, the game is getting ready to celebrate its seventh iteration. It also has two new versions set for release in the near future, including the aforementioned Switch port and a VR version of the game.
On the PC in particular, the game has had a very active modding community. Mods have been released that do everything from adding new weapons, cloaks, and followers into the game, to ones that add new areas of play. One mod even completely changes the game’s opening, allowing you to jump into the action without going through the game’s lengthy opening sequence.
Bethesda saw the popularity of mods in both the Skyrim and Fallout communities and when it came time to remake the game for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, they found a way to work with Sony and Microsoft to get mods on the system for both Skyrim and Fallout 4. While it doesn’t look like we can expect to see Fallout 4 on the Switch anytime in the near future, Skyrim will be here by the end of the year and it’s coming in glorious fashion. There’s only one major aspect of the game that Bethesda hasn’t touched on: whether or not their console mod system will be coming to Nintendo’s home/portable hybrid system.
Nintendo Has Been Playing Nice
At first glance, the answer seems like it would be a no. When it comes to everything from online play, to voice chat, to handling digital purchases, Nintendo is known for doing things their way despite the burden it sometimes creates for their customers. Still, it’s hard to deny that Nintendo is starting to play nice with modern gaming conventions, even if they are doing them in their own unique way.
The most surprising concession that Nintendo has made to the modern gamer is a game set to release later this year and is as far away from Skyrim as a game can be: Rocket League. One of the big selling points that Nintendo has listed on their page for the game is that the game will support cross-play with Xbox One and PC players of the game.
This isn’t a move that is limited to just Rocket League either. Minecraft, which has also announced cross-play, is unifying communities on Windows, iOS, Android, Xbox, and Switch by letting gamers play together cross-platform. The surprising absence from that list? Sony’s PlayStation 4. When asked about Sony’s refusal to allow cross-play for Minecraft, global sales and marketing head Jim Ryan gave a rather surprising answer, citing the game’s demographic as the reason for the lack of cross-play:
Minecraft – the demographic playing that, you know as well as I do, it’s all ages but it’s also very young. We have a contract with the people who go online with us, that we look after them and they are within the PlayStation curated universe. Exposing what in many cases are children to external influences we have no ability to manage or look after, it’s something we have to think about very carefully.
To say it’s odd seeing Sony, not Nintendo, blaming protecting children for their lack of innovation on the cross-play front would be an understatement. Nintendo’s motivation for most of their convoluted decisions regarding modern day gaming have been keeping their younger fans from being exposed to online things they shouldn’t be. Having Nintendo be at the forefront of cross-play for multiple games shows a huge shift for the company, and is a spark for hope that they could be open to allowing Bethesda manage mods on their system.
Nintendo’s still Nintendo
Still, at the end of the day, Nintendo is Nintendo and they still have some less than positive views of certain aspects of technology, even in 2017.
The way mods on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 work is essentially the same on both consoles, though each console maker has set their own restrictions on Bethesda’s baked-in mod system. On the Xbox One side of things, mods have 5GB of space reserved on the system. Looking past that, there are little to no restrictions that Microsoft has put in place, allowing a plethora of mods to come to the game and the Xbox community as a whole.
On the other hand, Sony didn’t want to play nearly as nice despite mods being a popular fan feature. On the PlayStation 4, mods are limited to 1GB of data total, and can’t use any external assets. If you’re pro-Skyrim and Fallout mods, the PlayStation 4 is not the place to play.
It’s hard to imagine that Nintendo would allow Skyrim to reserve any amount of data in the system memory, as Nintendo are notorious for being restrictive in that department. Despite full game sizes often being quite large, Nintendo likes to keep things small where they can. They even rejected a patch for NBA Playgrounds on the grounds that the file size was too large.
This shows that Nintendo has options if they allow modding on the Switch. We already know that the Nintendo Switch isn’t nearly as powerful as Sony and Microsoft’s flagship consoles, as evidenced by the fact that Skyrim for Switch looks to be a specially built version of the game for the latest Nintendo system and not a direct port of the Special Edition release of the game that came to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 last year. Comparison videos that have been released online have shown that the portable version of the game includes lower quality graphics, as well as the omission of quite a few special lighting effects. While we don’t know much about the game as of yet, there’s a chance that the reduced power of the system could negatively conflict with mods.
In Conclusion
Mods are something that are very important to the Skyrim community and the ability to take modded Skyrim on the go is a dream held by many, including myself. I’ve spent quite a bit of time installing mods on my copy for the PC and the wealth of content it brings to the game is amazing, but for the Switch that may have to remain a dream.
I would love to see Bethesda get mods on the next release of their fifth Elder Scrolls entry and I think that there is a glimmer of hope. Even Sony, who seems to be less willing to budge than Nintendo at times, gave in to mods with some serious concessions. So maybe we could see mods on the Switch in a similar capacity.
If not, at least the game will have some pretty awesome Legend of Zelda content unlockable via Amiibo.
Are mods for Skyrim on Switch something you’d like to see implemented, or is Amiibo support enough for you? Let us know in the comments below!
