In an unexpected twist, the beloved Thomas the Tank Engine has yet again found a new home in the world of video games. The creator of the iconic Thomas mod for Skyrim has defied legal challenges to bring the cheerful locomotive to Morrowind. This bold move challenges corporate pressure and continues the legacy of a meme that has become a staple in the gaming community.
Thomas Takes to the Skies in Morrowind
The newly released mod, Really Useful Cliffracers, transforms the cliff racers of Vvardenfell into none other than Thomas the Tank Engine. This creative endeavor is the brainchild of modder Trainwiz, who gained fame for the 2013 Skyrim mod featuring Thomas. Despite facing reported legal pressure from Thomas’s rights holder, Mattel, Trainwiz remains undeterred, opting to add Thomas to Morrowind.
On the Nexus Mods page for Really Useful Cliffracers, Trainwiz expressed his defiance: “I made a mod that replaces cliffracers with Thomas the Tank Engine. I am incapable of learning lessons whenever it involves corporations, because I fundamentally do not view toy company CEOs or media CEOs as people.”
Trainwiz added more, saying, “In between working on my game and dying of various accidental injuries, I sometimes feel like I need to milk a particular joke until its inevitable demise. I will do this no matter how many legal threats, actual threats, black vans with the Mattel logo on them, or severed Barbie heads are mailed to me.”
Further emphasizing his stance on authority, he admitted, “This is because I have issues with authority, particularly authority derived from intimidation. I kicked a lot of bullies in the nuts when I was a kid.”
A History of Defiance
In his BlueSky bio, Trainwiz portrays himself as a modder constantly at odds with Mattel: “Modder, game developer. Made that horrible, horrible mod that replaces dragons with Thomas the Tank Engine. Personally wielded the javelin that killed god. Mattel is constantly out to kill me.”
So why release the Really Useful Cliffracers mod now? According to its Nexus Mods page, Trainwiz simply stated: “I actually made this years ago but never released it, but then I realized that I don’t particularly care anymore.”
Despite legal wrangling from Mattel over the years, Trainwiz remains undeterred, with Bethesda even endorsing his work in a 2016 interview. Reports suggest that Mattel had previously attempted to suppress the mod’s presence on YouTube, but a subsequent ruling upheld its status as a parody.
In a 2019 interview with The Face, Trainwiz described the spontaneous creation of his original Skyrim mod: “A friend of mine gave me some Thomas models he had ripped from a crappy iPhone game and asked me what I could do with them, so I spent half an hour replacing dragons. It was just ‘what would be the funniest thing at the time?’”
Trainwiz also opened up about legal challenges: “I got in so much trouble. Mattel pretty much want me dead at this point — it’s the reason why the Fallout 4 mod can’t be found on any normal website.” He recounted how Mattel’s legal team initially succeeded in having videos removed, although YouTube later ruled them protected under parody law.
Despite the ongoing legal threats, the Thomas the Tank Engine mods for Skyrim and Morrowind are alive and well, continuing to captivate gamers worldwide.