Custom maps showed up in Session a week after early access opened, well before any official tools. One open-source mod manager and the Illusory unlocker have carried the scene ever since.
Before Session opened to early access, crea-ture Studios told players that modding had been a goal “ever since day one”, but that official tools would come “eventually”. The community didn’t wait. Session is an Unreal Engine 4 game, so map makers could build levels in the regular UE4 editor. What they needed was a way to make the game load those levels.
Eight days into early access, rodriada000 released Session Map Switcher, which switched maps while the game was running. By October, PC Gamer was writing about THPS2 and Skate 3 levels rebuilt in Session, “where the modding community is just getting started”. Several of those levels, Skate 3’s Black Box Distribution park and THPS2’s School II, were by GHFear, who also became the largest contributor to Illusory’s Unreal Mod Unlocker. The same person shows up in the Skate 3 and THPSPro stories.
A tool that kept up with the game
Getting maps to load meant patching the game, and the method changed several times. First it required an unpacked game. Then dga711’s EzPz patch replaced that, and from April 2020 the Illusory Mod Unlocker took over. Meanwhile the switcher grew into Session Mod Manager. It gained a free Asset Store for maps and gear, built with Gabisonfire, and a catalog tool so modders could run their own stores. Game updates broke mods often enough that the manager warns about assets older than the April 2020 engine update.
The scene exists because these people gave their time, usually for free. If you're missing from this list, or we got your work wrong, fix it on GitHub.
The largest contributor to the public Unreal Mod Unlocker. Also built early Session maps, including Skate 3's Black Box Distribution park and THPS2's School II.
crea-ture's patch notes warn that mods made before the update will crash, and tell modders to unpatch the EZPZ patch first. It's an acknowledgement of the scene, but not official support.
Missing something? This history is open source. Add an event, a person or a correction, with a source, in the source file. Early work is always the least documented, so dates, names and archived links are especially welcome.