Bethesda fans believe they’ve found evidence indicating thatThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimcould be receiving a premium marketplace for mods and third-party DLC in an upcoming update.Skyrimhas thrived since its release in 2011 in no small part due to robust post-launch mod support. Modders have added regions full of new adventures and gameplay toSkyrim, at no extra cost. The possibility of monetizingSkyrimmods is unlikely to be popular, but it’s something Bethesda has done before.
Between April 24 and 27 in 2015, Bethesda launched aSkyrimSteam Workshop feature for paid modsor “Purchasable Modifications,” allowingThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimplayers to pay what they want for certain mods. Profits were split between Bethesda, Valve, and mod creators. Backlash was so significant that Bethesda not only killed the feature in days, but refunded all payments to those who chose to purchase any premium mods. The 2017Skyrim Anniversary EditionCreation Club, offering a similar concept, was more successful but hasn’t been supported with new content for years.
RELATED:Skyrim Mod is a Game Changer for Character Customization
Bethesda fans watching for news regardingStarfieldrecently noticed a Steam database update formultiple versions ofThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimdubbed with the label, “Marketplace.” This isn’t an update for the live version ofSkyrim, but rather a non-public branch likely being used for testing. The branch has since receive several small updates since it first arrived on Steam on November 16, indicating it’s in active development. It appears to be a possibleSkyrimupdate of some kind, though there’s no official confirmation of that.
TheSkyrimcommunity has a fair reason to believe this could be evidence of a mod marketplace coming to the game. Specifically, Microsoft has used the “Marketplace” label before, namely theMinecraft Marketplace. The Minecraft Marketplace allows independent creators to sell their custom content, including skins, adventures, maps, and more for the Bedrock version ofMinecraft. The PC-based Java version, which fully supports mods, does not have a Minecraft Marketplace.
There’s no real evidence of Bethesda adding paid mod support back intoSkyrimat this point in time. This is a rumor, entirely. But it’s not unfair for the Bethesda community to think it’s still a possibility. Bethesda, even under Microsoft’s ownership, has shown repeatedly that it wants paid mod support in its games.Todd Howard even had a recent interviewwhere he reiterated this.
It’s perhaps true that the rumors surroundingSkyrimare being amplified due to the approaching release ofStarfield.Starfield’s release will be another opportunity for Bethesda to implement some kind of paid mod marketplace, whether like Minecraft Marketplace,Skyrim’s Creation Club, or otherwise. Fear of that possibility leads Bethesda fans to more seriously consider related rumors and speculation. Without further evidence, one can’t say for certain, but Bethesda’s efforts to add paid mod support to its games is unlikely over – whether it’s forSkyrim,Starfield, or a future release.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimis available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
MORE:The Elder Scrolls 6: A History of Soul Gems Up to Skyrim
