Immersive Lore-Friendliness: Game Modifications as Intertextual Tropes

The document explores the phenomenon of "lore-friendly" and "immersive" game modifications (mods) in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, analyzing them as intertextual tropes that address perceived dissonances within the vanilla game experience. The study highlights the immense volume of user-generated content for Skyrim, with over 45,000 mods on Skyrim Nexus and nearly 85,000 on Steam Workshop, significantly surpassing other Bethesda titles like TES IV: Oblivion (27,000) and Fallout: New Vegas (16,000) on Nexus. This suggests Skyrim uniquely provokes mod creation.

Mods are broadly categorized into those that transform the original game and those that enhance the vanilla experience without altering its core mood. The latter group, often labeled "lore-friendly" and "immersive" by the community, aims to align with the established Elder Scrolls encyclopedia and resolve elements that hinder player immersion. Examples include aesthetic improvements, adding variety to assets, fixing non-immersive features like direct quest explanations, or introducing survival mechanics such as hypothermia, hunger, and hygiene.

The analysis proposes using Michael Riffaterre's intertextual interpretation of Pierce's "interpretant" to understand how these mods provide additional explanations for game elements. The "intertext" can draw from previous TES lore, video game conventions, gamer subculture's desire for challenge, or knowledge of medieval Scandinavia. Immersive mods are viewed as material artifacts of intertextual interpretation, where modders incorporate perceived valid contexts into the game and share them for community validation. This approach aims to identify general rules for perceiving dissonance in games and to map the shared cultural backgrounds of Skyrim players. The scope is focused on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and its modding community, with data primarily from Nexus and Steam Workshop, reflecting content available up to five years post-release.