But seven games, one of which isn’t actually out and another of which is purely cosmetic, isn’t the most awe-inspiring of numbers.Īgain, though, that’s not a big problem. There’s no denying that the list comprises games of generally high quality (nearly half of them are Valve products, for crying out loud) and two of the most popular titles for modders – Skyrim and Civ V –are included. Ready? Okay! Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, DOTA 2, Skyrim, Civilization V, Dungeons of Dredmor, and, of all things, Naval War: Arctic Circle. It’s so small, in fact, that I can list them all right here. The first is the most easily forgiveable: right now, the selection of games that support the Steam Workshop is incredibly sparse.

In short: the Steam Workshop is quick, tremendously easy to use, and contains plenty of features that make installing and using mods a painless experience.īut there are a few problems which, while not the fault of either Valve or the Steam Workshop system itself, are problems nonetheless.

Better still, there’s a reason why that button is “Subscribe” rather than “Install”: the game will automatically check the Workshop for updates whenever you launch it, so you don’t need to manually check back on a regular basis. No more faffing around with precise install locations, lengthy command lines, separate shortcuts for each mod, or esoteric errors (which, admittedly, are four things that don’t crop up all that often any more, even when trying to mod games that don’t inherently support them). Once that’s done, all you need to do is select it and it’s good to go. The next time you launch Civ V and click on the in-game Mods tab, Vanilla Enhanced will automatically download and install. When you find something you want to install – the Vanilla Enhanced Mod for Civilization V, say – then you just click the Subscribe button next to it, aaaand… that’s about it. If you have a game on Steam that supports the Workshop, then all you need to do is highlight the game in your Steam library, click “Browse Workshop”, and hunt through the list of mods (assisted by an able search function, user ratings, and – if you’re into the sort of thing – user comments.) Steam Workshop is, in essence, a very simple way of installing, updating and activating mods for your Steam games and it’s one of the most ludicrously simple ways of doing so that I’ve ever seen. Fundamentally, there’s nothing wrong with it – in fact, it works so well that I’m damned if I can think of a single technical flaw with it. I haven’t quite decided what to make of the Steam Workshop.

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