Ever since Creation Club was announced at E3 2017, I was curious and worried about what to expect. Paid mods had been tried before and ended up being a bad idea then, so how would Bethesda handle it now?
I cannot comment on how Creation Club is with regards to Fallout 4, but Skyrim is another matter. As soon as the update launched for Steam, I was there to check it out, and see what was offered. As it stands now, I am very disappointed in the offerings and with good reason. While the limited offering are understandable as Creation Club just launched for Skyrim, the issues is that what is there, is expensive and often times has better free alternatives.
Admittedly, the free alternatives are more for PC users, even with free console mods, but it does raise a major issue. That is the pricing and nature of the content. Consider the Hearthfire DLC. It brought new houses that you could build yourself, adoption, new followers and minor quests along with some other content. It also only cost around five dollars. Compare this to some of the Creation Club offerings which are asking up to four dollars for a single weapon. Granted there is a quest often attached to some of the Creation Club offerings but they are nothing all that special.
Sheogorath’s staff for example is 2.50 and boasts of having a bonus artifact…… which is a fork. The quest to get it is nothing special and the actual item is just a magic staff that looks unique but doesn’t offer much. There is also Chrysamere, which looks almost exactly like it does in Morrowind, and that is not a good thing. To get it, you go through a dungeon as part of a quest, that sounds good except for the fact that the dungeon is just like every other dungeon with nothing unique in it. It is a superfluous quest that offers nothing, other than taking your money.
What is worse is that Chrysamere, and Stendar’s Hammer ( another offering), both have free alternatives that look and play much better. A major selling point Bethesda pushed was that Creation Club would have unique content, but the content just feels like paid versions of stuff you can get for free elsewhere, and better versions as well to boot. Then we have the four dollar option “Plague of the Dead”, which was hyped as a zombie mod…….and is essentially a minor quest, to kill retextured Draugr with minimal other effects. Some more undead spawn randomly after but again, it isn’t worth the money. There are more pieces for sale but I think you all get the point.
There is one other piece of content mention though. Originally when I wrote my first draft, I mentioned there was one piece that did stand out as worth getting. Ruin’s Edge is 4 dollars, which again is steep, but the bow was highly detailed, and there wasn’t anything like it elsewhere, and it had some truly unique features and ideas. It was truly unique to Creation Club. The key word in that last sentence being “was”. Within a few days, there was a free version made available for PC players and it is superior in almost every way. The Creation Club version visually looks better and has some neat touches, but the random effects were picked from a small set. The free version has a lot more variety to its effects and is far more true to the spirit of Shivering Isles. In addition, the quest to get the Ruin’s Edge in the free version is far superior and is a truly unique quest that involves returning to the Shivering Isles and ends with a memorable boss fight. I can no longer suggest the Creation Club version and this was almost the final straw for me. But There is also another issue with Creation Club that I have not mentioned yet. That issue is that some of the content offered has been causing issues for players, such as corrupted saves, and game crashes, which has ruined hours of gameplay for many people.
I want to like creation club and went in with an open mind but it was honestly as bad as people said it would be. Maybe Bethesda can turn this around, but it has definitely not left a good impression so far.
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The above was solely the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of Real Otaku Gamer or the other staff.