People have been modding lightsabers and Star Wars characters into Bethesda’s numerous open-world video games for so long as modders have been poking round within the code of the developer’s Creation Engine. However it wasn’t till Starfield got here alongside that we had a Bethesda recreation whose setting was naturally conducive to an final Star Wars fantasy. Starfield’s 1000-plus star programs, its gorgeously rendered planets and customizable ships, have begged for modders to rework this huge digital area right into a simulation of that beloved galaxy, far, far-off. Since its launch in 2023, Starfield has obtained quite a few mods, lots of that are Star Wars-themed. However one mission, Star Wars Genesis, goals to assemble one of the best that modders have put collectively.
I lately went via the laborious set up course of (made even more durable when you don’t personal a Nexusmods Premium account) and had an opportunity to talk with the mission lead, DeityVengy, about what impressed the mission, what it’s been like placing all of it collectively, and what the longer term holds for Genesis.
First, let’s again up a bit. Star Wars Genesis isn’t a mod itself, however somewhat a group of mods all assembled with a helpful installer often called wabbajack. The method of installing would require a Jedi Grasp’s stage of meditative endurance. It’s in depth. Needing to click on via so many mods, coping with a couple of that failed on set up the primary time (wrestling with my rattling storage drives which can be all the time just about at capability didn’t assist), after which lastly working the sport with this gargantuan checklist took me a while. So be ready for a prolonged and pretty concerned course of–and know you continue to could run into some points whereas putting in and even whenever you attempt to run it.
By some miracle of the Power, I, a girl who notoriously screws up mod installs, had Star Wars Genesis up and working on first boot and…Wow. Regardless of some framerate points (I’m solely working a 3070ti for a mod that recommends a darn 4090), it’s spectacular how readily Starfield might be reworked right into a Star Wars sim. Some current planets and cities are calmly reworked from their unique state. Mars, for instance, and its mining metropolis from the bottom recreation function Geonosis now. Tatooine, which appears prefer it makes use of certainly one of Starfield’s many desert worlds, is now residence to a recreation of Mos Eisley–and strolling round this dreaded hive of scum and villainy feels uncanny. However it’s not solely textures, buildings, and new NPC fashions that fill the area. There’s a devoted questline that does a formidable job of repurposing and tweaking the bottom recreation’s fundamental quest, Constellation, with modified voicelines that swaps the UC Vanguard for the Empire and the Freestar Rangers for the Insurgent Alliance.
Genesis takes place in an alternate tackle what occurs roughly 10 years following the occasions of Revenge of the Sith. It’s a becoming spot within the timeline for DeityVengy as Episode III is their favourite Star Wars movie. “I kinda grew up in the prequel era,” they advised me, “and naturally I ended up liking Revenge of the Sith.” They credit score “shows like Clone Wars, Kenobi, and Ashoka” with having helped rehabilitate the once-maligned prequel period. Keep in mind, although, that Genesis isn’t set on delivering probably the most lore-accurate Star Wars expertise.
It’s nonetheless working throughout the bounds of what Starfield has to supply, plus, as defined in the project’s lore page, setting this mod mission in an alternate universe means the participant doesn’t simply must “fight the Empire, Crime Faction 1, and Crime Faction 2” as gamers do in so many Star Wars video games that attempt to stick extra carefully to the lore. “Just look at Force Unleashed,” DeityVengy says. “Is it canon? No. Is it better than Star Wars Outlaws or the Jedi Survivor series story-wise? Hell yes.”
Some could take situation with that final evaluation of the latest Star Wars video games, nevertheless it speaks to DeityVengy’s imaginative and prescient of this mod mission firmly being “fanon, including what [they] consider the best aspects of every era.”
Given the title of the mission, I used to be interested by how this all began. The place does one get the impulse and the fortitude to assemble such an formidable assortment of mods, every from totally different modders, into one, totally working Star Wars sim? The mission, DeityVengy advised me, “started as a simple one-off video for my YouTube channel about one-and-a-half years ago. After the initial video blew up and more people got interested in it, I just had more motivation to keep it going and started working on my mods. It really [kicked off] after I made my main quest which completely rewrote Starfield’s main quest, and then there was another spike recently when I replaced New Atlantis with Coruscant.”
However even with a love of Star Wars and a bunch of followers keen to leap into a complete conversion mission, DeityVengy nonetheless had some large hurdles to beat. “For the longest time,” they advised me, “the biggest challenge was a modding limitation that Starfield had for about a year where you could only have around 100 or so mods installed until your game became unplayable.” That limitation proved to be a chance for DeityVengy, one “that ended up being the foundation for a few of my big overhaul mods such as Armor Compendium, which makes Genesis possible today. It really just forced me to be concise and organized when I was learning how to mod. Without that initial challenge, the project would be a lot less organized and a lot buggier.”
For these of us wanting to wield a laser sword (sure, I referred to as it that), there’s a little bit of disappointment awaiting you on the finish of the set up course of. “There are a few lightsaber mods out there,” they advised me, “but I really refuse to add them unless their implementation is perfect, and that’s just unfortunately not possible without Bethesda releasing their animation framework tools.” Dodging and higher third-person melee animations are actually what DeityVegny appears to want to make the expertise of wielding a lightsaber really feel pretty much as good because it presently does to the touch down in Mos Eisley and chill with some Jawas.
Up subsequent on their plate are some faction quest rewrites. The present mod checklist contains a full rebranding of the sport’s factions. Home Va’ruun, for instance, at the moment are a roaming band of Sith zealots. “I’m taking a lot of inspiration from the success of Andor and am keeping it as a grounded story,” they mentioned in regards to the upcoming faction overhauls. “The Rebellion questline that I’m working on is going to be a much more Andor-esque story where you’re just a regular person solving a problem for the Rebel Alliance.”
Star Wars Genesis is presently on model 8.2.0, with the mission having began in June of 2024 and receiving common updates since then. The following model, 8.3, is simply across the nook, promising over 1,000 new voicelines for the primary quest. The set up web page recommends ready for this new replace when you’re new to the mission. On the very least, it’s a superb alternative to do a contemporary set up of Starfield in anticipation as the method of getting all the things up and working is made simpler whenever you utterly clear your pc of any hint of the previous set up.
I’ve solely spent a few hours poking round in DeityVegny’s tackle the Star Wars universe, however from the opening moments on, with the long-lasting sights and sounds of Star Wars filling my eyes and ears, it’s clear I’ll be venturing to this model of probably the most beloved fictional galaxies of all time a hell of much more.
Up to date, 8/14/2025, 4:15 p.m. ET: It has been delivered to our consideration that Star Wars Genesis presently makes use of ElevenLabs AI for a lot of its voice appearing, a reality which was not talked about within the unique revealed model of this story. We remorse the oversight.
