This week on The Collection of Somewhat Recent Mods You May Or May Not Have Seen For PC Games—colloquially known as the Mod Roundup—we've got a mod for Fallout 4 that chucks out the quests and missions and gives you a straight-up, deadly-as-butt survival experience. There's also a mod for Stellaris that transforms the galaxy into the extended Star Wars universe, complete with Sith and Jedi. But wait, there's more! A Skyrim mod adds and improves over 100 merchants like farmers, chefs, sailors, hunters, and even bards, giving you many more NPCs to trade with.
Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.
Frost Survival Simulator, for Fallout 4
If you're looking for a real survival experience in Fallout 4, let me direct you to the Frost mod. It turns Bethesda's RPG into a freeform survival game set just after the bombs have dropped: forget quests and factions, your goal is simply to survive in an extremely deadly environment. Most NPCs have been removed, there are new and deadlier enemies to battle, and you can't even venture to the surface without a gas mask or you'll quickly die from radiation, forcing you to stick to the mod's interconnected subway tunnels until you've geared up properly.
Note: this mod is in alpha, and you need to disable all Fallout 4 DLC (if you have it). To start playing, you'll also need to load one of the mod's saved games which starts you out underground (if you spawn topside, you'll croak faster than you can say "War never changes"). Read the instructions here very carefully before installation.
Star Wars: A Galaxy Divided, for Stellaris
Bring the expanded Star Wars universe into the Stellaris galaxy. With a static universe based on Star Wars Legends canon, you'll find a static universe with 875 systems and accurately placed and named planets. It also features Sith, Republic, Jedi, and Mandalorian namelists, and yes, there are plans to add Ewoks in the future. Yub nub.
Immersive Merchandising, for Skyrim
If it ever bothered you that farmers, mill owners, and mine owners couldn't trade with you, despite you being able to use their facilities, this mod answers that and more by adding and improving 150 merchants. Now you'll find all sorts of people to trade with including farmers, mill owners, chefs, jewelers, hunters, fishermen, sailors, and even priests and bards. Plus, the East Empire Trading Company, which despite being a massive merchant organization only has crappy merchandise on hand in the vanilla game, now has a vastly improved stock of high-end items to choose from.
Looking for more mods? We've got them. Check out the best mods for Skyrim and the best mods for Fallout 4.
OG Fallout lead Tim Cain explains just how much thought went into the timeline, and why canned beans were key: 'Post-apocalypse, but not so far post- that everything's collapsed and everyone's dead'
This mod puts Wordle on all the hacking terminals in Fallout: New Vegas, and even gives you XP for guessing the words right
