FS17 Console Mod Support

Over the past 72+ hours, the forum thread on the official Giants Farming Simulator 17 forum thread lit up with rumors of rumors of even more rumors regarding console mod support for the upcoming (and highly anticipated) release of Farming Simulator 17.  For the record, I’m not a console platform gamer and I haven’t been a console platform gamer since the mid 1980’s when I replaced my Atari 2600 with a PC.  I realize there are some advantages to console game play with certain game titles.  But for a game application like Farming Simulator, in recent releases the PC has been truly the best option and this has been down to the availability of mods.

A game like Farming Simulator is certainly an awesome game in its “vanilla” format.  But just like vanilla ice cream can be made so much better with some chocolate syrup, whipped cream and even a cherry on top, games like Farming Simulator become truly AMAZING with mods.  Perhaps one of the best use for mods in Farming Simulator is the variety of add-on maps available.  As someone who has enjoyed FS15 since soon after it released almost two years ago, I’m really not sure I would still be playing it today if I only had access to the maps released by Giants.

When Giants announced the release date for Farming Simulator 17, one of the really big news items was the availability of mods for the console platform.  This included mod support for Sony PlayStation and Microsoft XBOX console platforms.  Again, this was really BIG News and rightfully so.

However, late last week the discussion on the Giants FS17 Discussion Forum began to turn a bit sour with news about how Sony has blocked mod support for Fallout 4 and Skyrim.  Both had been previously advertised to have mod support and both were denied mod support.  A little more reading and it appears Sony blocked mod support for these titles because they do not allow mods which alter the game in such a way the player has total freedom over the game.  For those of us who play Farming Simulator, the mass majority of our mods don’t alter the game in this fashion.

Over the course of several days, many who had pre-ordered one of the console versions of FS17 had threatened to cancel as their stated sole purpose of purchasing was based on mod support.  I certainly don’t blame them.  However, Giants did finally respond in the forum thread with the following comment “You can relax, we’ve worked with Sony to find a solution that works for both sides and nothing has changed since then.  Mod support for both platforms, Xbox One and PS4, will be available at Farming Simulator 17’s launch”.

While Giants response is certainly good news.  In my opinion it somewhat strengthens the idea in my mind that nothing in life is certain.  At some point in time Sony (or even Microsoft) could block mods from FS17 and there is nothing Giants or you as the consumer can do about it.  Of course, I’m hopeful this does not happen.  In addition, will the process of submitting mods for the console version of FS17 become too difficult?  Will some modders refuse to make available their mods to these platforms?  So while FS17 will have mod support available to console gamers AND Sony and Microsoft will allow mods to their console platform, will the variety of mods be the same between PC and console?  If not, what then?

Any console gamer making the assumption that all mods for the PC version will be available to the console (and they function correctly) may be in for a really big surprise.  For example, I’m not a mod developer.  But if I were, would I make the personal investment of purchasing console hardware and FS17 just to test?

But this does bring my thoughts around to a somewhat related subject of how mod distribution is handled for PC users.  In short….It’s an outright mess!  But I think I’ll save these comments for a future blog article which I’ll write and release very soon.

Until next time…

Happy Farming with Mods!

Jerry