Modders have been busy creating their own tweaks for Fallout 4 since it launched back in November, but without access to Bethesda Game Studios’ official mod Creation Kit, they have been severely limited in what they can accomplish with the game. Now it looks like the wait for those tools might soon be over, as Bethesda has announced the the Creation Kit has finally entered open beta for PC users.

“Mods and the players who create them have always been an important part of our games, going all the way back to Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls Construction Set,” the studio said in a blog post. “We believe that our games become something much more special, when we put the power of creation in your hands. New quests, environments, characters, dialogue, outfits, weapons and more – with Mods, the possibilities of what you can do are endless. You are creating new experiences that enhance and take our games into amazing and surprising new directions.”

“For Fallout 4, our goal was to make Mods easier and more accessible than ever before – for both the creators and the players. By building an all-new system with Bethesda.net we’ve made a huge leap forward in achieving that.”

Bethesda noted that for the first time, players will be able to browse, download, and play mods without ever having to exit the game.

It will be interesting to see how this move affects third-party mod sites, most notably NexusMods.com, which has long served as a hub of fan-created mods for all of Bethesda Game Studios’ titles, including Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim. Nexus Mods also currently hosts a majority of the Fallout 4 mods that have already been created, including popular mods like Armorsmith Extended, Full Dialogue Interface, and, of course, Caliente’s Beautiful Bodies Enhancer.

Then again, a number of Skyrim mods are also offered through the Steam Workshop, and that does not seem to have greatly affected NexusMods’ popularity.

In another first for its games, Bethesda has also promised that Fallout 4 mods will also be coming to consoles, arriving on Xbox One in May and PlayStation 4 in June. The studio did not explain how exactly console mods will work, but it will be revealing more details in the coming weeks.

Image courtesy of Bethesda Softworks LLC