A closer look
Modding used to be a dark art involving hex editors and a high probability of bricking your hard drive. But when developers realized that the community was better at fixing their bugs than they were, they started releasing their actual development tools to the public. The result is pure, unadulterated chaos. By opening the toolchain, games like Skyrim evolved from static products into sprawling, unholy software platforms. Want to turn the weather system into a meteor shower of explosive sweetrolls? Go ahead. These toolchains proved that if you give players the keys to the kingdom, they won't just remodel the castle—they'll attach rocket boosters to it and fly it into the sun.
