In an attempt to one-up Creation Club content, one modder from Nexus Mods that goes by the handle of HeirOfTheSeptems has recreated a popular paid-mod as a way to give it out to the modding universe… for free. Some, however, feel as if HeirOfTheSeptems is denigrating the work of the original modder who made the content for the Creation Club.

The original mod is a paid mod on the Creation Club called the Ruin’s Edge Bow. It comes with its own quest and is a scaly looking, purplish weapon with an Eldritch-like eye in it. If Soul Edge was a bow, it would be the Ruin’s Edge. You can see what it looks like in the image below.

There’s a video that briefly covers the bow and its functionality that was posted up by YouTuber LunarGaming, in case you wanted to see what it looks like in action.

Well, HeirOfTheSeptem decided to remake his own version of the bow and paste it up over on the Nexus Mods page.

The controversy erupted when users saw the bow and felt it was a poor imitation of the one from the Creation Club, and then they read the FAQ where HeirOfTheSeptum mocked the whole paid mod fiasco surrounding the Creation Club.

An argument broke out over on the comment section, where some people praised him for copying the Creation Club mod and making it free on Nexus Mods, others derided him for what they felt was taking someone else’s work and giving it away for free and doing so at a lower quality.

One of the Nexus Mods users, who goes by the handle of Tskales, explained in an e-mail that he doesn’t like paid mods but also doesn’t mind modders being paid through services like the Creation Club, writing…

“My issue today is the dog shit reactionary modding that has cropped up recently on Nexus mods site. You only need to look at the Ruin’s Edge bow mod on Creation Club, then it’s copycat version on Nexus to see a real shitty piece of work from a truly horrendous moron. The attempt to rip off the original take on Ruin’s Edge is almost criminal, and should be bannable by Nexus mods but is not currently.” [sic]

One user in particular, Mudran, explained that Bethesda’s use of the Creation Club has done nothing but drive a wedge between the community, and that this will likely only make things worse for The Elder Scrolls modding in the future, despite a lot of potential being there for the Creation Club, writing…

“I wanted originally Bethesda to cooperate with modders, but I couldn’t imagine that it will not be modders who would influence Bethesda in a good way, but it will be Bethesda influencing the community in a bad way. Not only that, but it feels more like hostages – for them to say that it is not microtransactions, to lie about it… Still it can turn out to be quite good if there would be DLCs made by big groups, where I can imagine [it] is harder to gather more […] people to work on some project without payment.”

HeirOfTheSeptems, however, has been facing some people stating that his mod may get hit with a copyright claim, but he states that nothing in the Creation Club is copyrighted and that he should be fine. Some also asked if he would be making changes to the mod to avoid a copyright claim, but he feels he will be okay, and that the Ruin’s Edge mod is not a copy of the one from the Creation Club, but is instead its own thing, writing…

“I wouldn’t say “changes”, as that implies that it is some kind of edit or copy of the CC mod of a similar name, which it is not. This was completely made from scratch by me, the only similarities are those defined by the original bow in oblivion.”

While both bows feature an eye on the handle, and a quest that requires completion to acquire them, they do look distinctly different and the quests aren’t identical to acquire the bow.

Even still, we’ll see how well Bethesda handles modders making similar mods from the Creation Club that are then given away for free on Nexus Mods.