SweetieGames

Many people fell victim to the clickbait articles circulating about the Switch 2; that the user doesn’t actually own it and that Nintendo is leasing it to buyers. This is not true, but one thing that Nintendo have been firmly against is modding their games. And the gaming community just has one question: Why?

Modding a game may interfere with the original intention of the creator; I’ve seen plenty of mods that completely alter NPC characters in games like Stardew Valley. Not only is Nintendo strongly protective of their IPs, but they are also in a unique position of being the only mainstream console and video game creators aimed primarily at a younger audience, and mods can allow for unfiltered and inappropriate content to be easily accessible within a kid’s game. You can see why this may be a problem.

I do think it is a real shame that only a tiny portion of mods introduce inappropriate content, but it means that mods as a whole have to be harshly banned on all current Nintendo consoles. Imagine a world where you’d be able to create your own villager and place them in Animal Crossing, or have a wider range of dialogue with the villagers already there (especially as I find the New Horizons dialogue gets stale pretty quick!) or just general quality of life updates for your favourite games that aren’t updated anymore. Dedicated fans have produced absolutely incredible mods spanning more than just new outfits; who remembers when someone created The Simpsons Hit and Run as an open world, connecting all of the locations together?

I adore mods for games like Baldur’s Gate 3, especially as I found the customisation options pretty limited in the base game. I now have dice that match my character, just like playing real DnD! On console, developers Larian Studios approve mods to be uploaded onto the console mods section, and some people have proposed a similar strategy for Nintendo games. There’s no way a company as big as Nintendo could approve and upload the sheer volume of mods that people would propose for their big IPs like Mario, Zelda and Pokémon. I would love to see a system that could check mods for inappropriate content before they’re publicly uploaded, like an approval system, but i can’t see that happening unfortunately.

I understand why these rules are in place; hate speech has been spread in fan-made mod content before. However, these instances are few and far between, and it would be great if we could someday have a middle ground where honest fan-made content can make its way into some of our favourite games. And as many game sites have mentioned; don’t try and mod your Switch 2 currently, unless you want it to become permanently unusable!