Skyrim’s cheese-house architect and clutter curator brought their powers to Starfield

polygon.com:

The cosmos in Bethesda’s Starfield contains wonder, adventure, and also a whole lot of junk — literally. A mission to a deserted research station might turn into a nonstop trinket-grabbing spree where players pick up every other mug, vial, and pill bottle left on a desk or lab table. As it turns out, space and its many technological edifices contain a veritable treasure trove of just random stuff. Much of this stuff was put there by Starfield developer Emmi “Elianora” Junkkari.

Prior to working on Starfield as a contract worker, Junkkari already made a name for herself as a veritable curator of clutter. She created mods that added stunning redecorated locales to games like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout 4. These include Tel Aschan, a beautifully cluttered mage tower home in Skyrim’s Winterhold, a city with no homes available for purchase in the base game, and an army bunker in Fallout 4. She also put a house made of cheese into Skyrim.

Over the years, Bethesda’s games have nearly become synonymous with their modding communities. Games like Skyrim owe modders everything from new and more complex gameplay to vital quality-of-life features. But Bethesda’s game development process has also become increasingly entwined with fan labor through programs like Creation Club, which allowed modders to create additional content for Skyrim and Fallout 4. Bethesda has hired developers from Creation Club, like Junkkari, for contract work.

Junkkari told Polygon she never thought she would ever break into the video game industry. She worked in IT and other service positions, until one day she downloaded a mod for Skyrim. In 2016, she published her first Skyrim mod and eventually went on to publish dozens of other mods that