Elden Ring Has Been 'Ruined' By Modding
The Lands Between can be a grey and grisly place, and if it isn't everything from trees to sheep trying to kill you, you've got the various monsters, madmen, and Shardbearers trying to trigger that "You Died" screen. Of course, there are some ways to cheat the system, with some sneaky Elden Ring mods making your experience a little easier.
Whether it's helping boost your level or making farming runes easier, the modding community has embraced Elden Ring into its bosom and tweaked the latest FromSoftware game to their own desires. Obviously, with any PC release, there's the lighter side of modding that doesn't just focus on gameplay or graphical tweaks. The problem is, it can also make the fantasy epic a nightmare of colourful proportions.
Are Mods Ruining Elden Ring?
Over on YouTube, ToastedShoes is showing off their Elden Ring build, which turns the realm into a cartoonish hellscape. While things are definitely brighter in the Lands Between, the various demigods and creatures are replaced with everyone from Thomas the Tank Engine to Shrek and Donkey, Sesame Street's Elmo to the sad frog meme.
In a series titled "Elden Ring but ruined by mods", ToastedShoes adds a series of pop-culture creations to the game... so you don't have to. Swapping out the Tarnished for Homer Simpson, it's definitely a different build to those of us who've spent hours in the character creator trying to replicate Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction or Star Wars' Darth Maul.
ToastedShoes uses mods from fellow YouTuber Garden of Eyes, who recently made it possible to play as Geralt from The Witcher in Elden Ring. You might remember Toasted Shoes as that guy who turned Capcom's Resident Evil 7 into a crossover with The Simpsons - delivering the survival horror we never realised we needed. These days, his 575k subscribers tune in to see him pull off stunts like modding SpongeBob's Sandy Cheeks into Sifu.
Are Mods Really Ruining Elden Ring?
Obviously, ToastedShoes is taking this to the extreme. Most of us who are modding Elden Ring are simply doing it to improve the sometimes dark aesthetic that can often make it hard to see. Nexus Mods is full of handy tweaks that boost performance and add a pause option, while other gamers are more than making the most of a modded "easy mode". Be warned though, modding can lead to FromSoft whacking you with a ban.
Sure, swapping the Tree Sentinel for Shrek and his steed for Donkey makes for some viral YouTube content, but how many of us are actually going to do it on a permanent basis? We also don't imagine there are too many of you who'd want to fight Garfield instead of the Erdtree Burial Watchdog. Then again, if it's given you a chuckle, go for it. Come on, seeing Adventure Time's Princess Bubblegum as Melina is pretty cute.
