The March 4th patch broke almost all of the current mods, resulting in either a crash or endless loading on login. Because of a drop in general interest and a slowdown of mod submissions most of our library is now non-functional for all users, as Just Cause 3 has not been cracked and nobody can sit on an old version without an auto-update from the parent DRM. A few modders have taken the liberty to update their mods to function with the latest patch, as many do when hot games recieve large, mod-breaking updates, though most unfortunately remain non-functional. The JC3 Mods team (2 people) is excessively busy and we have not had much time to think of a solution to a problem that we did not expect to run into while developing our upgraded modding resource in preperation for JC3. Neither of us are programming specialists so we cannot assess the situation properly but can safely assume the “Implemented DLC system in preparation of the Air, Land and Sea packages” patch note may reference the vital change which caused the issue.

With the changing landscape of the industry comes new game development strategies, some of which not only add to the grief of modders, but also make mod archiving more complicated for the archivists who run the fan-made databases. By pushing large releases that break mods by modders who unfortunately aren’t interested in returning to the scene to update their creations, keeping an archive of past mods becomes increasingly difficult when the game in question is niche or popular but liable to lose the spotlight quickly. When Just Cause 2 came out in 2010, it was not as common to see massive patches being released for cross-platform titles, likely due to the challenges of performing such tasks caused not only by limitations imposed by console hardware, but also the expectations set on wholly singleplayer games to be released in a state where they will not inevitably need to be updated in order to meet imposed quality standards. Due to the amount of players who may go through the entire game without their console ever seeing a network connection, releasing “unfinished” singleplayer games to meet deadlines was seen as an industry taboo and a damning move for the future of a brand. After the release of the 8th generation consoles we have seen many singleplayer games include network-based gimmicks like scoreboards to justify a connectivity standard which promotes an environment where the developers can safely assume players will be able to receive game updates after installing the boxed copy.

We can proudly say that, due to the fact that Just Cause 2 only received one small update, our entire library of 1000+ mods still works to this day on any version of the game, cracked or legit, some even working on modified consoles. With Just Cause 3, however, after roughly three months most of our library has been rendered non-functional as a result of a large patch, a patch that also appears to have hid vital data that previously assisted with mod creation. We are not attempting to place any blame on the developers or publishers, we’re just making sure you understand why we are in this situation. Neither of us are game developers so we can only speculate on these matters, but either way we are confident that this issue will persist and make keeping Just Cause 3 modding alive very difficult. This is a very sad admission considering the apparent vitality of Just Cause 2 modding to the development of Just Cause 3, and we apologize if the situation has disappointed any modders or players.

Disclaimer: Just Cause 3 Mods is a community-run website and is not owned or affiliated in any way with Avalanche Studios or Square Enix.