EpicNate - Fallout & Elder Scrolls Lore
Oct 29, 2026 · 7 min · 8 segments
Skyrim Special Edition is set to release this October, and lacks PS4 modding support. With the PS4 as the only platform that will not have Skyrim Mods, it's stirred quite a bit of frustration. Adding…
So starting off, what's the reason for Farming Simulator getting mods first? Well, we can consider what Bethesda requires for their modding community.
Bethesda has actively made it the norm to afford modders access to nearly free range with many of the very tools they themselves have used to construct the game.
Combine that with the fact that Skyrim itself is a very complex title with a lot of content, and I think it's safe to say that the reason why Bethesda titles enjoy such vibrant and active modding scenes half a decade after the respective games come out is because there's a lot to mod and a lot of ways to mod it, messing around with sound, visual, and other game files.
Whereas when you look at Farming Simulator, the modding scene isn't as inherently complex.
From what I've seen browsing the community is a lot of mods that edit the skin of different pieces of equipment, some change numerical values, neither of which require you to mess around too much with the game files anyway.
There does appear to be some sort of limited script access, but then again, nothing too demanding.
No visual overhauls or voiced NPC quest mods or anything of that sort.
So when the developers of Farming Simulator appeal to Sony to allow their mod support process to be verified, Sony is able to see exactly what the modders will be given access to, which really doesn't appear to be much anyway, and say, oh, okay, this is acceptable.
Whereas when Bethesda comes to Sony and tells them that they need their modders to be able to upload heavily modified .esms, the, uh, the file suffix Bethesda uses for mods and DLC and sound files and be able to mess around with .ps4 files, Sony looks at this and says, no! half of what you're doing is literally incompatible with our system, which is actually the reason why when mods were supposed to come out on the PS4, modded sound files wouldn't have been able to work anyway, and the other half possesses a huge possible security issue.
Now it should be noted that what I'm about to say has not been confirmed by Bethesda nor Sony, but due to that fundamental lack of communication, I think drawing the possible correlation here that I'm about to does make some sense.
On the PlayStation 2, for instance, you could literally get around Sony's quote-unquote protection and run a game from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, remember when those ancient civilizations existed? Burn that game onto a disc and be able to play with a copy you just made, which costed both Sony and their developers a lot of money and potential sales revenue.
On the PlayStation 3, there was a number of HDMI-CP issues, thanks again to Sony's protection.
Where if you wanted to record gameplay with a capture card, you needed to do and go through a very difficult workaround that required enough wires to constitute a fire hazard.
Again, on the PlayStation 3, overriding Sony's protection and jailbreaking the system was incredibly easy.
And once done, people could be given access to literally download games for free and often early before their release dates, as well as host Call of Duty Challenge lobbies.
So for Sony to deny Bethesda's modding process in the interest of security may not be that unfounded.
They have a reason to be afraid.
Allowing users to upload and modify files as complex as .esms, they fear, may open up potential avenues for future security threats.
So while Sony may be tolerant and trusting of these massive game publishers with millions and millions of dollars at stake, that trust probably doesn't extend to your average Joe.
And looking back at the history, that's probably one of the bigger reasons the PlayStation 3 has always had such a significantly smaller indie game scene than the Xbox 360.
So while Sony can look at and recognize the simplicity of the files that Farming Simulator wants to mess around with and be alright with it, they are a bit more conservative about allowing manipulated, complex .esms.
So starting off, what's the reason for Farming Simulator getting mods first? Well, we can consider what Bethesda requires for their modding community.
Bethesda has actively made it the norm to afford modders access to nearly free range with many of the very tools they themselves have used to construct the game.
Combine that with the fact that Skyrim itself is a very complex title with a lot of content, and I think it's safe to say that the reason why Bethesda titles enjoy such vibrant and active modding scenes half a decade after the respective games come out is because there's a lot to mod and a lot of ways to mod it, messing around with sound, visual, and other game files.
Whereas when you look at Farming Simulator, the modding scene isn't as inherently complex.
From what I've seen browsing the community is a lot of mods that edit the skin of different pieces of equipment, some change numerical values, neither of which require you to mess around too much with the game files anyway.
There does appear to be some sort of limited script access, but then again, nothing too demanding.
No visual overhauls or voiced NPC quest mods or anything of that sort.
So when the developers of Farming Simulator appeal to Sony to allow their mod support process to be verified, Sony is able to see exactly what the modders will be given access to, which really doesn't appear to be much anyway, and say, oh, okay, this is acceptable.
Whereas when Bethesda comes to Sony and tells them that they need their modders to be able to upload heavily modified .esms, the, uh, the file suffix Bethesda uses for mods and DLC and sound files and be able to mess around with .ps4 files, Sony looks at this and says, no! half of what you're doing is literally incompatible with our system, which is actually the reason why when mods were supposed to come out on the PS4, modded sound files wouldn't have been able to work anyway, and the other half possesses a huge possible security issue.
Now it should be noted that what I'm about to say has not been confirmed by Bethesda nor Sony, but due to that fundamental lack of communication, I think drawing the possible correlation here that I'm about to does make some sense.
On the PlayStation 2, for instance, you could literally get around Sony's quote-unquote protection and run a game from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, remember when those ancient civilizations existed? Burn that game onto a disc and be able to play with a copy you just made, which costed both Sony and their developers a lot of money and potential sales revenue.
On the PlayStation 3, there was a number of HDMI-CP issues, thanks again to Sony's protection.
Where if you wanted to record gameplay with a capture card, you needed to do and go through a very difficult workaround that required enough wires to constitute a fire hazard.
Again, on the PlayStation 3, overriding Sony's protection and jailbreaking the system was incredibly easy.
And once done, people could be given access to literally download games for free and often early before their release dates, as well as host Call of Duty Challenge lobbies.
So for Sony to deny Bethesda's modding process in the interest of security may not be that unfounded.
They have a reason to be afraid.
Allowing users to upload and modify files as complex as .esms, they fear, may open up potential avenues for future security threats.
So while Sony may be tolerant and trusting of these massive game publishers with millions and millions of dollars at stake, that trust probably doesn't extend to your average Joe.
And looking back at the history, that's probably one of the bigger reasons the PlayStation 3 has always had such a significantly smaller indie game scene than the Xbox 360.
So while Sony can look at and recognize the simplicity of the files that Farming Simulator wants to mess around with and be alright with it, they are a bit more conservative about allowing manipulated, complex .esms.
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