My dreams will forever be haunted by this Starfield mod that swaps every last ship with Thomas the Tank Engine

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Bethesda's space RPG goes full-on cosmic horror

Thomas The Tank Engine's massive face smiles down at a Starfield character.
(Image credit: Bethesda / Trainwiz)

One Starfield modder has replaced every single spaceship in the game with childhood mascot Thomas the Tank Engine, and the results are absolute nightmare fuel.

“For his crimes against God and his invention of murder, Thomas was smote, thusly,” explains modder Trainwiz. “Rejected from Hell and obviously never going into Heaven, they say that the Tank Engine has been banished to wander the stars forever, unable to satiate his bloodlust and unable to find peace in his heart.” Laying eyes on Thomas' interstellar form is only slightly traumatizing, but don’t worry, space Thomas isn’t real. He can’t hurt you. 

Should you want to see Thomas’ unblinking cold stare, lifeless complexion, and threatening smirk in Starfield, you can download the mod on NexusMods. Once you do so, the locomotive icon replaces all spaceships in the game. That includes whatever ship you’re flying, but also every single enemy ship. (So I guess space Thomas can in fact hurt you, sorry.) “Yes, that includes the Starborn ship,” Trainwiz says, “No, I will not apologize.” The modder took a break from working on their own space flight game, Underspace, to curse us with the mod.

Due to Thomas’ exorbitant size, you might run into a few issues. “You might find your ship poking through [Thomas] from time to time, and that’s something you’ll need to figure out, alright?” The mod might also cause problems for Starfield's shipbuilding, third-person flying, and other mods or texture replacers - “but if you’re installing this mod to begin with, we can both agree your life isn’t in the best place currently.”

Thomas the Tank Engine has (unofficially) crept into several games, and his presence has never been as cheery as what you’d expect from a children’s cartoon. Thomas was once modded into Resident Evil 2 Remake and somehow made that game twice as scary. A Valheim player also recreated the train using wood and, err, a troll’s head, which is probably less fugly than the above mod. In fairness, however, one Starfield player built a Thomas-themed spaceship that looked relatively normal.

To soothe those nightmares, see the other best Starfield mods. No tricks there, I promise.

Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.