The relationship between computer games and their modification communities is symbiotic, with the ability to use a popular, favoured game as a springboard to learn about coding an essential way in which a lot of children and adults alike get their start in game design.

The game Minecraft is a subject of many modding courses precisely because the development of a modding community prolonged the game’s life even with other creative survival games available.

However, some modding communities go beyond extending the life of a successful game and help to rescue a game that could have languished in obscurity.

TSLRCM

In 2004, Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Pillars of Eternity) faced an exceptionally difficult and immovable deadline to release a sequel to the exceptionally popular RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. 

This sequel, given the second subtitle of “The Sith Lords”, received positive reviews despite being rushed to release, prone to technical issues and lacking many pieces of content, including an entire planet.

Enter The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM), which found these fragments of data and used them to complete quests, fixes over 500 software bugs and revises the ending of the game as well.

It is seen as so essential to complete the game that when publisher Aspyr cancelled its release for the Nintendo Switch, it led to a class action lawsuit.

The Unofficial Patch

With over 20 years of development, the Unofficial Patch for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is so important to the experience of playing the game that it is almost impossible to play the game without it.

Troika’s pioneering open-world vampire RPG was full of technical flaws that hurt sales and caused the company that made it to go out of business, but a dedicated following of players who saw it as a flawed diamond worked tirelessly to keep the game functioning.

Not only did this help keep the game popular, but it also formed the groundswell for a sequel that has itself spent a protracted time in development.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover BLITZ Edition

The third game in the long-running historical flight simulator series, Cliffs of Dover was seen as a failure by its developers and was quickly abandoned.

However, a community team, later known as Team Fusion, helped to make the game more stable and added extra content.

Their work was so impressive to 1C Game Studios that they worked with the community team to rerelease the BLITZ edition officially, crediting the modders and allowing them to create expansions and additional paid content based on the game.