BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins is nearly ten years old now, but the game still gets much love from the fan community. This is especially the case with the modding scene on the PC, where folks have taken it upon themselves to add content and fix bugs whenever they can through the use of mods.
One major example of this is modder Paul Escalona, better known as Qwinn, who created the Ultimate DAO Fixpack mod. Originally released in 2010, the DAO Fixpack was a massive patch mod that attempts to fix the entire game, including removing over 790 bugs found in the quests, scripting, plot, and dialogue of Dragon Age: Origins. The mod also attempts to restore cut content from the game, most of which is believed to have been cut by BioWare due to time or budget constraints. Previously removed from Nexus mods, it returned last year and received some more updates after that.
Mods such as this are not entirely new in the PC gaming world. Often, fans use their skills as modders to restore content found in the game's code, or to complete further bug fixes to the game to make content accessible. While these mods are often unsung heroes compared to the more creative endeavors of the mod community, they are quite popular with some games, enriching them after their release and official patching is complete.
Examples of these kinds of mods are sometimes famous. The Unofficial Skyrim Patch, for example, aims to fix hundreds of bugs at a time that affect the game's quests or scripting. Other mods are much more ambitious, such as the Sith Lords Restored Content Mod for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, which re-created parts of the original intended ending and end-game content to Knights of the Old Republic 2, which was famously cut down due to time constraints.
There are, of course, hundreds of mods out there that do this for almost all popular PC games, old and new. To learn more or to simply download these mods, you can visit websites such as NexusMods or ModDB to see what they promise to do.
What are your thoughts on unofficial Patch Mods? Leave your comments below.
