You may think that the PC version of Elden Ring‘s bugs and performance issues make it the worst version of the game, but fans are quickly discovering that it’s hard to ignore the appeal of Elden Ring‘s best mods.
Thanks to sites such as Nexus Mods, players can download and install fanmade programs and additions that alter Elden Ring in significant ways. Some mods are merely cosmetic, such as altering the Greatsword’s model to look like Cloud’s Buster Sword, while others dissect the game’s code via a cheat menu. Of course, not all mods are created equal, and there are some that greatly enhance the already great experience in some way.
Now, a word of warning: Elden Ring utilizes an anti-cheat system, Easy Anti-Cheat. This program will potentially ruin your day if it detects even the most benign of mods, so for your own sanity, don’t use mods before disabling Easy Anti-Cheat. More importantly, only use these mods while offline. If you want to play online, disable all mods if you cherish your game account.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Mod Loader and Anti-Cheat Toggler
We’re cheating a bit with this one (pun unintended), but let’s face facts: deactivating Easy Anti-Cheat to play with mods and then reactivating it if you want to play online is a slog. That process also requires you to remove every mod from your copy of Elden Ring, as well. That’s why some modders decided to just make mods for the mods.
The Anti-Cheat Toggler and Offline Launcher and Elden Mod Loader mods are fairly self-explanatory. The first, when activated, painlessly turns off Easy Anti-Cheat and starts up Elden Ring in offline mode, while the other automatically inserts every .dll-based mod stored in its dedicated folder into the game. If you want to play with mods, just turn on the Anti-Cheat Toggler and Mod Loader, and if you want to play online, deactivate them. Elden Ring’s anti-cheat software can’t detect any mods if there are no mods to detect.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Pause the Game
While Soulsborne games are primarily known for their tough-but-fair difficulties, their historical lack of a simple pause feature has always been divisive. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a notable exception to that tradition, although Elden Ring players found an in-game workaround of sorts thanks to the Help menu. However, modders went one step further and simply created a dedicated pause function for the game.
If you download the Pause the Game mod, you can pause Elden Ring while scrolling through in-game menus. It doesn’t matter if you need to take out the trash or grab a drink; so long as you have this mod installed, the action stops whenever you want it to.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Easy Mode
Game difficulty is a hot topic these days. Titles like Elden Ring are designed with only one grueling challenge level in order to make each victory feel even sweeter. Admittedly, not everyone is up to the task (or interested in dealing with the process), which is why gamers often engage in heated discussions over difficulty modes. Quite a few fans want FromSoftware to design games with an “easy” option available, and while that seems unlikely, modders are more than happy to offer a surprisingly useful alternative.
The Easy Mode mod for Elden Ring…umm…makes the game easier. With this mod, players receive 50% less damage, deal 25% more damage, and obtain 10x the normal number of runes. This fanmade mode by no means makes Elden Ring a walk in the park, but it does offer a nice difficulty alternative.
Even if you don’t want to install this particular mod, the internet is full of other fanmade alterations that help ease players into Elden Ring‘s challenges. For instance, the Auto Recover HP and FP mod automatically fills 0.5% of the HP bar every two seconds and recovers two FP every second. Again, that mod doesn’t make Elden Ring too easy, but it certainly makes it a bit easier.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Hard Mode
Many gamers reject the idea of difficulty modes in Soulsborne games on the grounds they don’t like easy modes, but they forget that a difficulty slider could also provide an even greater challenge. If Devil May Cry games can feature a punishingly brutal mode that makes players die in one hit, why shouldn’t Elden Ring feature something similar?
Since Elden Ring doesn’t have an official hard(er) mode, modders went ahead created the Prepare to Die (Hard Mode) mod. This unofficial patch increases enemy stats significantly. For instance, enemies in an NG run will sport health, stamina, damage, and defense equivalent to enemies in NG+. Moreover, every hostile creature in the game is smarter and more vigilant, as they can see and hear players from further away. For now, this mod might be the ultimate Soulsborne challenge.
Best Elden Ring Mods: PS5/PS4 Controller UI
Thanks to the magic of cables, wi-fi, and Bluetooth, PC gamers can connect their Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch controllers to their gaming rigs and play Elden Ring pretty much however they want. However, computer ports usually only feature button prompts for keyboards and Xbox controllers, Elden Ring included. Modders have taken it upon themselves to fix that oversight.
The PS5 PS4 Controller UI mod is pretty self-explanatory; the unofficial patch replaces all internal texture files related to button prompts with those for the PS4 Dualshock and PS5 Dualsense controllers. The experience would be cosmetic if it didn’t actually help players figure out what buttons they need to press.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Fix the Camera
It’s no secret that Elden Ring’s camera kind of sucks. Many gamers complain about how it misbehaves, especially when the character moves. While the staff at FromSoftware could fix the game’s camera in a future update (or an eventual sequel), modders have already alleviated the problem.
The Fix the Camera mod, true to its name, fixes Elden Ring’s built-in camera system. In the vanilla experience, the camera swings around lazily in an attempt to keep characters centered on the screen, which is bound to give many players motion sickness. The mod, meanwhile, lets the camera simply snap the character towards the screen’s center, which not only looks smoother but also works faster than the unmodded camera. With any luck, FromSoftware will draw inspiration from this mod for future camera fixes.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Elden ReShade – HDR FX
Elden Ring is, by far, the most beautiful Soulsborne produced by FromSoftware. However, there is always room for improvements, and modders are usually the first to provide them.
One of the most notable early graphical mods for Elden Ring is the Elden ReShade – HDR FX mod, which adds high dynamic range (HDR) lighting. What is HDR, you ask? It simulates how light behaves, not unlike ray tracing, but without heavily impacting performance. As a result, the mod provides better colors, skyboxes, and contrast without cutting into framerates. This kind of mod is a must for gamers who want to squeeze every teraflop out of their super-powered gaming rigs.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Enhanced Moveset Utility
While Elden Ring offers mouse and keyboard control options, Soulsborne games are typically best played with a controller. They just tend to feel designed with joysticks and dedicated button layouts in mind. While we’re still waiting for FromSoftware to really figure out what optimized Soulsborne keyboard and mouse controls look like, modders can offer a compelling alternative.
The EMU Light – Enhanced Moveset Utility mod lets players remap button layouts for easier use. For instance, rolling/backstepping and sprinting use the same button in vanilla Elden Ring, but this mod lets players map the function to two different buttons. When EMU is active, players are less likely to roll when they want to sprint and vice versa. However, the mod’s most notable inclusion is a “quickcast” function. Yes, EMU lets players map different spells and items to different hotkeys on the keyboard, as well as utilize specific controller button combinations to quickly access these hotkeys.
So long as players can remember which items and spells belong to which toggles, they can potentially access these spells and items faster than normal. After all, the difference between a lifesaving flask chug and death is often just a single second.
Best Elden Ring Mods: Thomas the Tank Engine, Homer Simpson, Shrek, and More
Finally, if you’re looking to have a little fun with Elden Ring and don’t mind breaking the “immersion,” consider downloading one of the game’s many character skin mods.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if the Tree Sentinel boss rode Thomas the Tank Engine rather than an armored horse, this is the mod for you. There are even mods that allow you to play as Homer Simpson and battle Shrek and Donkey, though it seems those sadly haven’t been added to Nexus Mods quite yet. In the meantime, there’s a video that should leave you dreaming of the possibilities: