Grand Theft Auto V is tearing up the Steam charts. People are reveling in the chance to play the game again on PCs, to toy around with various optimization settings and perhaps enjoy a richer experience than the one found even on the PS4 and Xbox One. There’s only one thing missing, however, and it’s something we’ve come to expect from most PC releases – mod support.
Rockstar Games has sidestepped questions about modding. When GameSpot asked Rockstar North about them, the team said it wanted to focus on GTA Online and not detracting from that experience. Since then, some modders have been going back and forth on whether the developer has made GTA V easier or more difficult to mod than GTA IV .
Initial reports saying it was difficult didn’t stop people from trying to mod GTA V , and succeeding, too! OpenIV has started opening the game up to basic mods, a trainer is available that allows people to cheat, and there’s an Unlimited FOV mod to improve people’s viewpoint. Things are already happening, even though the game is only three days old.
Still, it would have behooved Rockstar Games to be more encouraging of such experimentation. Mods keep a game and its community alive. This game is already two years old. Measures could have been implemented during development to provide people easy access to tools that would let them customize their experience, especially since the developer has to be aware of how crazy people went with modding GTA IV . Hell, even the number of people modding GTA V on consoles is impressive.
Rockstar should have considered the reception of other releases which have encouraged people to create their own content. Bethesda’s catalog is a perfect example, and people still log hundreds and thousands of hours in games like Skyrim because of the plethora of bonuses modders have put together. Cities: Skylines is a wonderful, recent example. Paradox Interactive ensured mod support would be included from the very start, and people responded by creating over 33,000 mods and buying over 1 million copies of a game that normally would have passed under the radar.
Now, it isn’t as though not having immediate mod support will hurt GTA V , but think of how much it would have helped it. Right now, most of the people opting in are likely first time buyers. Had people known that the game would support custom content creation from the start, I imagine many more would have decided to double dip and play through it again, either so they could enjoy what others will make, or even start seeing what they can put together themselves.
It seems like something Rockstar would, and should, have considered. Mods support may not break a game, but it can certainly make it. GTA V is surely fantastic on its own, but it would absolutely be even better if the developer let people do whatever they want to the game at launch. One can only hope staff is watching and seeing people already going out of their way to try and make exciting things, and perhaps consider releasing a suite of tools in the coming months.