The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Featured Creator: Kinggath
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Creations launched for Skyrim at the end of 2023.
With Creations, several prolific modders of Bethesda Game Studios games have contributed to the program as Verified Creators. These Verified Creators include Trainwiz, TheRealElianora and this month’s Featured Creator, Kinggath.
In addition to leading the team that created Sim Settlements, a popular series of mods for Fallout 4, Kinggath contributed to Creation Club. His newly formed studio, Kinggath Creations, has released their first Verified Creation, East Empire Expansion, an expansion of the merchant company previously limited to the Solitude docks that also helps the player convert their dungeon loot into coin.
In our interview, Kinggath shares more about the team’s evolution into Kinggath Creations. He contrasts how leading a group of volunteers creating free content differs from developing paid content, and dives into the differences between being a Verified Creator and being a part of Creation Club. Plus, we get a sneak peek of the next Creation the team has in development.
For more information about Creations and becoming a Verified Creator, check out our FAQ.
After contributing to the Creation Club program with the Settlement Ambush Kit for Fallout, you've released one of the first projects for Skyrim Creations. What excites you most about the Verified Creators program, and Creations in general, compared to Creation Club?
Creation Club was very cool. It was the first time I was given pretty open access to some developers at Bethesda - for asking questions about workflows, getting feedback on my work, and even getting to put in feature requests and bug reports, so it was almost like being a remote employee.
The most exciting thing about Verified Creators is being able to do voiced content.
In order for new systems to feel at home in the base game, it generally requires characters and quests to help ground the new gameplay in the game world's reality. That’s what our team working on Sim Settlements has spent years doing, taking our systems and ensuring there are characters who care about the results so that it has meaning to the player.
Being able to bring our experience to bear in this arena is really exciting. With modding we tend to be a little more freeform, which can lead to lots of feature creep and a feeling of never being finished. Players purchasing content expect a much more polished and complete experience. This program challenges us to tighten up our skills and sand down those rough edges.
You've led teams that created some complex and ambitious community-made expansions for Fallout and Skyrim. What are the most important things when it comes to managing a team endeavor like Sim Settlements or East Empire Company?
There are definitely some differences between managing those two projects, as the dynamic changes when it's all volunteers. The common element to the success of both projects has been communication.
I try to have very clear up front conversations for every aspect of the project, and make sure each person involved knows what they are responsible for. Then once they take responsibility, I have to give them the support they need to complete it - this can include things like solving technical issues, getting them guides or partnering them up with other people.
We’re all building this big thing together, but it can often feel like you’re working on it alone.
So, another important aspect is regular meetings to ensure everyone has what they need to move forward, and that they see how their work impacts everyone else’s work on the team.
Lastly, I think milestones are a huge thing. You need to periodically stop and combine everyone’s work, reaching some goals along the way, so everyone can see there’s progress being made, and can see that their individual contributions are helping that. When we do trailers, it might seem primarily as a means to hype players up for our projects, but I think they are almost more important as a team morale booster! Seeing all of our work come together in cinematic fashion is super inspiring.
Editors Note: Check out our prior interview with Sirick of the Sim Settlements team.
And what are your long term goals for the Kinggath Creations team as you release more Creations content?
One of the goals is to get our production value closer and closer to the games we’re building for. We’d like to be making things that players have a hard time distinguishing between being a mod and official DLC.
As we get more experienced with the tools, leverage the support we get from Bethesda, and make use of the budgets provided by previous Creations, we can create bigger and more ambitious projects, so that each new release will hopefully be more impressive than the last.
Ultimately, we’re trying to graduate beyond just the team moniker, and start to feel like a proper studio. Where we have specialists for each of the major creative disciplines, as well as dedicated QA and customer support staff. We want to be creating professional level content, and supporting our playerbase in the process.
What advice would you give to a modding team preparing to start on a new ambitious project?
Be honest with each other. Have discussions about what each person is hoping to get out of this, and how serious they want to take it - both in time commitment and quality level. If everyone’s not on the same page up front, things are going to fall apart.
Once you’re sure you all agree on the direction, you need to pick some milestones to aim for so you can get your stuff all working together - having an eye on an achievable prize will keep everyone motivated.
Once you have chunks of content that are impressive, you can show them off or even release them, which will build up a fanbase. This not only adds further motivation - knowing there are people excited for your work - but is helpful in further recruiting if you need to expand your team. Those finished slices show outsiders that your group is capable and the fanbase will help spread the word for you.
With Starfield Creations on the horizon, what systems or aspects of Starfield are you most excited to dive into when the Creation Kit tools are released?
I’m really excited to tinker with all of the enhancements made to the Creation Engine in general and see what kinds of new powers we have as modders.
Since this game engine has been my home for the better part of a decade, getting a new Creation Kit feels like getting a new major version of Unity or Unreal - in other words tons of new modern toys to play with!
I’m extremely curious about some of the dynamic systems and what can be done with them. For example, we have tens of thousands of lines of code in Sim Settlements dedicated to just placing items into the world, while Starfield has the ability to place entire dungeon encounters dynamically - the potential of a system like that feels incredible.
Can you give us any hints or previews of future Creations you have in development with Kinggath Creations?
We’ve built up a team that’s heavily focused on creating systems and wrapping them up in a story that’s thoughtfully written and professionally voiced. We’re doubling down on that focus as we go forward, using the money earned from East Empire Expansion to go even bigger.
The next group we’ve been working on is the Bards College. We’re aiming to give them a role as large as the other guilds in Skyrim, complete with a main questline that tells a tale with big rewards. Like East Empire before it, it’s being designed to introduce and teach new systems that give the player lots to dig into even after the quests are complete.
