Elden Ring Modathon 2022

July 29, 2022

I hosted the first Elden Ring Modathon, putting up a $1k prize pool to see who could make the best mods, in just one week. I reached out to other content creators to act as judges for the competition and get more people excited about participating in the event. I wanted to work with creators that knew a lot about modding and could understand not only how the mods affect the game, but how they were made as well.

The first judge I found was Amir, a Youtuber known for deconstructing how systems like backstab detection work in FromSoftware games. The next judge for the competition was Zullie the Witch. She’s been a well-respected data miner and hacker in the community for the past 8 years. Finally, I got LobosJr who has never modded FromSoftware games before but has played many mods in his career as a streamer and was just starting to learn how to mod himself. These creators helped me build anticipation and interest in the event in a way I never thought possible. Even before we began I knew we would bring the modding community closer together.

This modathon was the first event I had ever put on and it took a lot of work to promote and organize. Thankfully I had help. I ended up working with Nexus Mods to officially host the event on their website. I announced the event a month in advance so people new to modding could start learning and preparing for the event. I started a Discord server to organize participants or anyone who wanted to learn how to mod. The server acted as a way for me to teach people the basics of modding much like how I first began to understand.

During the month leading up to the event, I made 4 Youtube videos showcasing mods I made in less than a week to promote the event and inspire other modders. In the final video, I announced the categories that competitors would be designing their mods around. The intent behind the categories was to prevent people from making their mods before the modathon began with the rules of the categories and to provide a breadth of options so that even new modders could feel as though they have a chance at winning.

The modathon ended with 24 entries with a large variety of ideas. Some of these mods take over an hour to complete all the content within them. After curating the eligible mods for the judges, I met with them, played through the mods together, and received their feedback and choices for their top picks.

After the winners were selected, I made a video to cover the winners along with some honorable mentions. The modding community received the event positively and more people are interested in competing next year. As modding tools continue to develop for Elden Ring, there will be more opportunities to create game-changing mods in shorter periods of time. Next year, I plan to get more creators and modders involved to make the event entertaining and engaging for both people in the modding community and those who just enjoy playing mods.

The event was covered by Jason Hon at Screenrant.