The world of modding has contributed immensely to video games through the years. Some of the most popular games ever have been born out of mods, with two of the world’s most popular eSports, Dota and League of Legends, both having been spun off from a Warcraft 3 mod. It’s staggering to look at what modders can do with a game, from adding functionality to fixing problems to creating an experience entirely different from what existed before the mod.
While there is no shame in basic mods like face packs, roster fixes, or setting tweaks, which can all help to make a game better, today we are looking at a few more ambitious projects. These games completely overhauled how gamers could interact with a game or series to spectacular results. If you’re looking for a change of pace in your sports gaming, one of these mods may be just what you’re looking for.
Zealand Presents: American Tiers 22 (Football Manager)
There are few, if any, sports games that can claim to be as expansive as the Football Manager series, which arrives as an official release with a staggering database of players, clubs, and national football league structures to play in. Naturally, one of the most popular ways to modify the game comes in the form of mods, which add even more leagues and teams to play with to the game. While these mods generally are used to create representations of real leagues that did not originally appear in the game, sometimes modders decide to get more creative with things.
The “Zealand Presents: American Tiers 22” mode for Football Manager, made by FM modder readthemeade with consultation from FM’s top streamer Zealand, gives American soccer fans what they’ve been begging for for years: promotion & relegation. This mod gets rid of the established footballing leagues in the United States, replacing them with a seven-tier pyramid with three single-league tiers and four tiers of multi-league action for a total of more than 1,000 clubs to play with.
The top tiers in the mod at launch are filled with the teams currently occupying the top positions in the real-world American leagues, but where the fun really starts is when you get deeper into the pyramid. Rather than relying on creating made-up teams to fill things out, this mod sees teams based in real-world clubs, real teams from the other big four sports leagues, and clubs representing indigenous communities. This mod created an entire new footballing world in America that let fans dive in and imagine what it would be like to see Pro/Rel in real life, all while also adding in a healthy mix of fun club options to explore in the lower divisions.
NBA In 1990 Roster Reset Mod (NBA 2K20)
Sometimes a mod does something so cool that you are left wondering, “Why can’t this be the way the game actually is?” Sometimes the developers seem to ask themselves that same question, as evidenced by the success of the 1989-1990 Season roster modification mod for NBA 2K20. The 2K series may not have existed in the 1990s, but that didn’t mean fans of the sport didn’t want to see the 90s stars on the virtual courts of the sport’s leading franchise.
A mod project headed by NLSC Forum user DMX_133 sought to bring the stars of yesteryear into the modern game, and it was an unqualified success. The mod featured real NBA rosters for every team in the league in an authentically structured format to align with basketball in the 90s. By working in combination with custom draft classes for each ensuing year, gamers had the option to start a season 30 years in the past and play through their franchise, successively adding each new class to develop their own alternate universe NBA.
If you have played an NBA 2K game in the last few years, this is probably sounding quite familiar, as beginning in NBA 2K23 the team at 2K has offered the MyEras mode, which allows players to pick one of several starting points in NBA history, then play out season after season with real classes entering automatically every year. It’s a beloved mode, and one that fans of other big four gaming franchises often wish they could see replicated in their games, making it one of the series strongest selling points.
SP Football Life
The world of annual sports game modding is an interesting one because of the short cycles of the games being released. Your favorite mod ever may not get a compatible update next year, meaning you are left with the decision to stick with your older game or move out without the benefits of the mod you installed. Modder Smokepatch’s SP Football Life mod solved that problem by outlasting the game it was made for entirely.
The Pro Evolution Soccer series is beloved by large portions of the soccer-loving gaming community. For many years, it was locked in a battle with EA Sports’ FIFA franchise, with the general sentiment being that on a functional level, the PES series got the nod. Unfortunately, video game development is not always meritocratic. Among other issues, PES lost the licensing war, and the series ultimately flagged before being killed off in favor of a move to the live-service model with eFootball.
While the Pro Evolution Soccer name may be gone and no longer releasing new editions, that doesn’t mean fans of the engine can’t play out their 2025/2026 fun thanks to the SP Football Life mod. It debuted as FP Football Life 21 with Pro Evolution Soccer 21 as a mod designed to improve performance and make the game more fun to play. As the franchise itself changed, it took on new meaning and value to fans.
Now the mod lives on, receiving annual updates. In addition to small tweaks and changes completed in the mod’s live-development cycle, an annual update changes the clubs and leagues in the game to turn it into an accurate reflection of the current state of world football. This mod isn’t just a way to keep playing or a way to try out the PES engine for the low, low cost of free, but also the only way to play PES 2021 at all if you didn’t buy it at the time, as the game has been fully delisted across the major game marketplaces. The mod is directly keeping the game it was made for open and accessible in ways that would completely cease to exist if the mod did.
NHL Hitz Mod
Say the wrong thing around a middle-aged sports gamer, and you’ll find yourself on the end of a soliloquy about when your options for sports gaming didn’t end with realistic simulation style games, and nearly every sport had its all-action arcade option to choose from. While NBA Jam and NFL Blitz may be the games that stick out the most in your mind, the NHL had its own version of arcade action in NHL Hitz.
The game was a 3-on-3 approach to hockey on a small rink, which meant that even with fewer players on the ice, you were never too far away from an opponent ready to find themselves on the end of one of your titular hits. The Hitz series did not have the most accurate stick dangles or pinpoint shot control of modern hockey games. What it did was an abundance of fun as you zipped around the rink, firing shots and landing heavy checks on the other team.
The NHL Hitz 2025 mod brings back an entire genre of hockey games, allowing you to try out this old-school fun with a modern look and in-game roster. It’s all the things gamers at the time loved about the game, only you can play Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, or Alex Ovechkin. And yes, even the Ovi vs. Sid the Kid rivalry wasn’t around yet in the year when the franchise got its final release in 2003, if you want to understand how long it’s been gone.
Like the PES mod, this game keeps a retired franchise alive and kicking for modern gamers, with the added boost that it’s also keeping an entire style of hockey game alive. This isn’t a difference of minor engine discrepancies from the NHL series, but a unique hockey gaming experience that only remains a modern option thanks to the work of modders.
Modding is such an incredible service to the video game world. These games have carried on legacies and unlocked entirely new ways to play for gamers in 2026. Do you have a favorite mode that similarly knocks it out of the park that gamers need to check out?
