Gaming

I already answered differently, but I want to put out that the STALKER fandom is held together by mods. There are everything from almost invisible bug mods to an entire standalone mod. STALKER is one of those franchises where modding just seems like such a natural fit to round out the world and it’s amazing how the vast majority of mods intend to support the tone of the game rather than just adding in the whims of the mod maker.

@SevenSwell EU4's modding scene vastly improves the game, with a variety of total overhauls available. Same goes for most Paradox games actually - the modding scene is usually well taken care of.

But I'd be lying to myself if I said anything other then Skyrim AE.

For me it's Zelda games.

Ocarina of Time for 3DS on Citra in gorgeous with the HD Texture packs https://www.henrikomagnifico.com/ and you can also grab PS4 buttons to make it more playable and the motion controls with the PS4 controller are actually good.

The stutter and low quality on Breath of the Wild and now Tears of the Kingdom were unbearable for me, but BotW is phenomenal on Cemu and TotK is running on most computers at over 30fps, even in 4K, and my PC has a really nice processor in it and rarely drops below 60fps at 4K.

I didn't make it very far, but the Dolphin version of Skyward Sword using the thumbstick for sword instead of the crappy Wii motion controls was SOOO much better. I'll probably go back and finish that after I beat TotK.

Edit: oh, and the most important part of emulating those games is actually being able to set the attack/action buttons to something normal, like the playstation cross button instead of the Switch A / PS Circle. I love Nintendo games, but hate their stupid button layouts.

OG Diablo II is still thriving and kept alive thanks to some amazing mods, such as Project Diablo 2. Improved graphics, wide-screen support, and tons of QoL changes and additional content every few months keeps the game fresh and arguably, better than all other official iterations of Diablo out there.

I have spent many happy hours playing GW2 and ESO. Mods have improved the GW2 experience significantly, but the game is still playable without them, if somewhat annoying. ESO is completely unplayable without lots and lots of mods, at least for me. I'm so directionally challenged that I gotta have my minimap.

I cannot speak for the entire S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, but at least the first entry (Shadow of Chernobyl) is, while still very much playable, just so much better with a couple mods. And once you're familiar with the core gameplay, adding huge mods like Anomaly or G.A.M.M.A. (which itself is a modpack of Anomaly) adds many weeks worth of replayability to the game. Not even mentioning how good the game can look with these mods that touch it straight up into 2023. Of course, here and there you'll still notice that it's based on an older game, but it can easily compete with AAA releases of the past couple years in terms of atmosphere and immersion (especially the sound design).

I don't know if it counts as mods but I love playing Wind Waker randomizer :3

TES3MP was an amazing experience for Morrowind.

I would say the binding of Isaac. The game is amazing but I now really struggle to pay without some quality of life mods

All of the older Grand Theft Auto titles were saved by modding originally (ignoring the remade definitive edition trilogy of course) GTA III, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas, and even GTA IV were all released for older hardware and much different technology at the time they were released, so there's some weirdness getting each of the games to run without issues or well on modern hardware and modern Windows. GTA IV specifically has a notoriously bad PC port that is at times hard to play without any mods or community made utilities.

All four games are substantially better with mods, from small things like restoring the original soundtracks for each of the games that have since been patched out due to licenses expiring, improving performance and stability, bug fixes, and even things like widescreen support. (Original GTA San Andreas specifically looks amazing with widescreen support and some other mods throw in)

My favorite mod currently is the GTA IV downgrader, found on GTAForums, it downgrades the version of your game, making it compatible with all of the most important utilities and mods made by the community.