Killing floor, insurgency, chivalry, the forgotten city, Dayz, and Dota were all mods that became good enough to receive their own games
As for actual mods, there’s a ton of source engine mods that turn out great like Entropy Zero 1/2, Portal Stories Mel, Raising the Bar Redux, and Black Mesa.
For non-source engine mods there’s Chronicles of Myrtana for Gothic, STALKER Anomaly/Gamma, Starwind for Morrowind and dozens of fantastic overhauls for Mount And Blade Warband.
I'd sincerely recommend never giving Paradox money every again, under any circumstances. I gave up on them at the start of '22, and I should have a ***lot*** sooner.
I'm serious. They kill your dog. They'll fuck your mum.
Same, it was around early 2022 for me, with the terrible CK3 support culminating with the horribly disappointing Royal Court DLC. They somehow turned the royal edition of CK3 from what should have been a good deal into making me feel ripped off 18 months after the actual purchase.
Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and a few more started as total conversion mods for Half-Life 1.
Insurgency was a mod for Counter-Strike Source.
DOTA was a mod for Warcraft.
Forgotten City and Enderal started as mods for Skyrim.
If we’re talking about mods for their own games that didn’t also become new games IP themselves then there are;
Fallout New California and Fallout Frontier for Fallout New Vegas.
Sins of the Prophets for Sins of a Solar Empire.
Republic at War for Star Wars: Empire at War.
The STALKER games have a bunch but most well known is STALKER Anomaly and STALKER GAMMA.
Just off the top of my head, there’s a ton more.
Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos. It‘s a Gothic II mod and maybe the best mod I have ever played. I even preferred it over Enderal (only comparing them based on enjoyment).
It was incredible that a mod for a seemingly very outdated game is better than many new AAA releases.
It's actually what made me post this. I discovered it via another reddit post. I don't think many people know it and it's really, really something. The mod packs can make it look modern as well but I couldn't get them working.
Ayy, came back to playing Long War of the Chosen for a week or two now and it's okay, but after seeing chimera squad - I just don't know what's gonna happen to X-COM man.
Well yes, but actually no. A smaller release to test the waters in a new direction. Apparently they're very happy with how it turned out setting wise - and will continue with the plot of "all the aliens live mostly peacefully, in big cities, with the humans, 5 years after X-COM 2."
So in other words, Rip X-COM.
It's a very good tactics game that launched at around $20. People comparing it to much more expensive games are being unfair.
I like xcom2 war of the chosen more than chimera squad but it's not really a fair comparison.
In majority: yes
However, it does have some sweet new additions to the series. [I'd recommend this video on the topic.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P3_HQuFyAis)
The amount of depth they add to the games they might as well be total conversion mods, I've only ever played long war X-COM and can't play vanilla it's just too simplistic
I agree about he depth but a total conversion is by definition a conversion of the game to another game/universe /lore/style. They're the same one, just much deeper.
There is so much in anbennar to learn it's amazing, plus the fact it's still got a lot of potential still unrealised I can easily see myself playing thousands of hours in the mod
Beyond Skyrim is a project that aims to add more territories around Skyrim. For now they've only finished one (Bruma), and while it isn't as extensive as Enderal it's still quite good. Development for other regions seems to have slowed down unfortunately.
Tamriel Rebuilt - not quite a total conversion but a major expansion to Morrowind, it adds several locations outside of Vvardenfell, at the moment it has more content than the vanilla game.
There are several Hearts of Iron 4 total conversions that are quite extensive. I've never played it but Equestria at War is meant to be one of the biggest and best, it's My Little Pony themed. Some other Paradox games have total conversions too, like the AGOT mod for CK2.
Mount & Blade Warband has several. Perisno and Prophesy of Pendor are two big ones that come to mind, but there are others that are set in Japan, Europe, AGOT, etc. There's no voice acting or anything but the map is replaced, all (or almost all) villages, towns, and castles are new, as well as units, armours, and weapons. Often they have unique mods concerning diplomacy, economy, and other aspects.
Space Exploration for Factorio was so good/popular that its creator was hired by the devs to make it part of the game, the upcoming Space Age DLC.
I mean county Bruma is finished, it was released as a prologue and tester, same thing my team did with fallout 3 remake, released the Pointlookout dlc first and the Pitt is coming soon. Admittedly the main game is still a while off but all quests are playable.
I feel like the Hearts of Iron to MLP (or, I guess, MLP to Hearts of Iron) pipeline might be worth exploring more deeply. You know, what sub-communities they might have in common, etc, etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Dark\_Mod](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Mod)
Lost track of the number of times I have played Thief 3 and then started Thief 4.
A Game of Thrones for Crusader Kings 2. Maybe CK3's version gets there someday but the CK2 one has a dozen or so bookmarks covering 300+ years of history all with their own events, and multiple gameplay systems created solely for the mod such as dragons, slavery and battlefield duels. And it even has some official but optional mods for new bookmarks that are thousands of years before the books.
It's not strictly a Total Conversion, but Vox Populi for Civ V it's a mod that received (and still is) years of support and it dwarfs the original game (and Civ VI) in terms of balance and AI. It's my way to go to scratch some Civ itch.
The classic Doom games have one of the best and oldest mod scenes around, and have done amazing things. Since the engine is open source, many Doom TC projects have become standalone games. Here's some examples of Doom TCs.
- Batman Doom
- Doom: The Golden Souls (series)
- Harmony
- Ashes 2063
- Sonic Robo Blast 2
- Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers
- Adventures of Square
Factorio has a lot of mods/mod packs that change things massively, the most notable being Space Exploration which adds other planets, interplanetary logistics and has a playtime in the range of 300-500 hours to complete, it's so well done that the mods developer was hired by the factorio Devs.
Another of note is seablock, it's a modification of the angels/bobs mods where you have to generate everything from water and are restricted to an island you have to expand yourself, think Minecraft SkyBlock. It is also incredibly long in terms of play time and it's basically a necessity to add mods to speed up time it takes that long at times.
In general the modding scene for factorio puts every other game to shame, having all the modding infrastructure built into the game is amazing, I can search for, download, and update mods all within the game itself.
Is Diaspora any good? Does it still hold up? I never heard of it. I remember a Freespace 2 mod called Beyond the Red Line (or something to that effect) that I played the demo of maybe 10-15 years ago and they got the feeling of the Viper down cold, but there was only one or two missions and then production stalled out.
The two big Half Life Alyx conversions -- C17tyscape and Return to Rapture -- come to mind, but I haven't personally played them. Has anyone tried them? What did you think?
Most of the ones I really loved were old sourcemods that were mainly focused on multiplayer, so they aren't really easily playable anymore. Dystopia, Insurgency, Eternal Silence, etc. Obsessing over sourcemods was like my main hobby back in high school, put so many hours into Dystopia in particular, for a fair while it didn't even have more than one map, but when a map is as good as dys_vaccine, I guess I didn't need more.
Dimensions of the Machine and Call of the Machine isn't exactly a total conversion, but they are extremely ambitious mods for Quake and Quake 2 that do a remarkable job at extending the gameplay rhythms of each game beyond what was possible back then, creating a campaign that has modern design, but with gameplay sensibilities of old. It makes sense that they were such a tremendous success, of course, seeing as they were made by none other than MachineGames, the developers of the new Wolfenstein games. They're even canon, according to the Quake developers, though even the idea of a canon for the Quake games has always been a very nebulous concept.
Strawberry Jam for Celeste is a collaborative mod project of over 350 people that adds 116 maps across a wide spectrum of difficulties. It dwarfs the base game in scope, though, as a mod project, its unsurprisingly uneven in quality. It's also got nine hours of original music, enough for them to sell five albums on Bandcamp with proceeds all going to Trans Lifeline. I would undoubtedly recommend playing the base game first, but this mod alone can keep you occupied for a couple hundred hours.
I see people mentioned AGOT for Crusader Kings 2, but there's other total conversion mods for CK2 that are also worth mentioning: Faerun - Forgotten Realms Total Conversion and Warcraft: Guardians of Azeroth.
Faerun is still getting regular updates, last one was on the 9th of June, whereas Guardians of Azeroth sadly got abandoned in favor of the devs working on a Crusader Kings 3 version of the mod instead, but what's there is still fun to play with.
For Crusader Kings 3, you have quite a few total conversion mods: Godherja - The Dying World (original setting), Princes of Darkness (Vampire: The Dark Ages IP), LOTR: Realms in Exile, A Game of Thrones and Warcraft: Guardians of Azeroth.
For Stellaris, there's Star Trek: New Horizons and Star Trek: New Civilisations (not my typo, that's how the mod author named it), but that's pretty much it. I really wish someone made a decent 40k mod, but I won't be holding my breath.
Operator the Game is a total conversion for Insurgency and delivers on realistic, tactical gameplay. It's difficult, but all of the ammo and armor is way better than Insurgency. Shot placement matters. Real world ammo and armor with some of the best shotguns in any game ever. Has a ton to offer the tactical player.
Huh, never heard of this, now I'm tempted to get ARMA 3, always look at it during a sale but I recall trying it really early on and I didn't get the same feel from it like I did with Operation Flashpoint back in the day... never got into the ARMA franchise.
Feel like in the past I've heard you need certain addons for some mods? that the case?
If you're into Paradox grand strategy games, Hearts of Iron IV has multiple very, very well done total conversions.
* Millennium Dawn, which *completely* replaces the game with the world as it is in the year 2000, including entirely new mechanics like budgeting, social laws, political system that isn't "democratic/fascist/communist/other", etc.
* Old World Blues, a *very* thoughtfully put together Fallout: New Vegas campaign. Just like the above, a large number of new mechanics and a completely reworked world.
* Equestria at War. Yes, really. For some bizarre reason the *brony* community has one of the actually best, highest quality total conversions for HoI out there. It is remarkably well done, despite being set in the My Little Pony universe.
* Kaiserreich, which rewrites the entire planet to an alt-history world where Germany won the first World War, and yet WW2 is still spinning up for other reasons.
* The New Order, which is set in 1962 after Germany won WW2, but now is falling apart into a civil war and Europe is collapsing around it.
There's also others I haven't played so can't attest to their quality, like The Great War (WW1) and a Cold War conversion.
Seriously, the modding community around this game is insanely dedicated.
Fallout Dust (FNV mod) and Fallout Frost (Fo4 mod). Survival hardcore set in world spaces of their original games.
Dust is ~20 years after the end of FNV where all the bad endings happened, and the Mojave is a giant death trap. Everything is hostile, and there's lore notes/clues/etc hidden all over the map. The only goal is to find a way to leave the Mojave in one piece (5 different endings).
I haven't played Frost very much, but it's ~10 years after the bombs dropped. Almost everything is hostile, groups have been formed, and you are just trying to survive.
They're also both pretty popular, so there have been a ton of community mods to patch weapons/armor/etc mods to work with them.
You probably don't mean retro games. But I have to mention the Aliens Total Conversion for classic Doom (1993). lul. It was so good and so underrated and undercommunicated. Incredible work. All graphics and sounds, and all levels for the first episode, were new, and portrayed the movie Aliens (1986). Some sounds replaced with suiting dialogue lines from the movie. The BFG-9000 replaced with the exoskeleton power loader. I loved it. Made by one guy.
But small compared to modern games and mods of course.
It was in the very early internet era. I got internet in Norway in 1995 or 1996. There were several interesting public FTP servers, mainly in the US, by universities and others. They had things like free games and programs, and mods.
Star Wars Warlords - Homeworld 2, eventually moved to Sins of a Solar Empire.
Call of Warhammer/Thirst of the Mad Gods - Medieval 2 Total War - Warhammer Fantasy total conversion
Third Age - Medieval 2 Total War - Lord of the Rings total conversion
Mechwarrior: Living Legends - Crysis
I just found out about [THUGPro](https://thpsx.com/) for Tony Hawk's Underground 2 today. Hopefully it'll be good. T.H.U.G. 2 is abandonware so it's free to boot.
Unification Mod for Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm.
It is a mod that adds a while bunch of new, updated, lore/tabletop inspired, factions, units, and gameplay mechanics. It's a huge fusion of a bunch of different mods collated together by the community, and it's pretty much the only reason to play Soulstorm instead of Dark Crusade.
IMO it's better than Titanium Wars, more encompassing, a bit more balanced, and it's everything Dawn of War III wishes it could've resembled. Absolutely amazing. I believe it's currently around it's 7.00+ release.
Mandalore Gaming has an excellent video on YouTube about it, from a year or two back. I'd recommend it.
Natural Selection paved the way for the devs to become even more competent and pump out Subnautica
I think NS and NS2 might be dead nowadays as they're multiplayer
Medieval 2 Has an absolute fuckload of mods that over hall the game just massively from lotr, ASOIAF, Warhammer, Elder scrolls, you could go on.
Skyrim has a Enderal and if you count it a few modlists that painstakingly keep lore accuracy but change as much of the gameplay and features as possible as well as adding in huge questlines that work in the world, and plenty more in that stage of not yet materialise.
Mount & Blade Warband has got a good number as well like prophecies of pendor, LOTR, Feudal japan, 1800s europe, Medieval Europe, Star Wars, ASOIAF, etc.
STALKER with Anonmaly / GAMMA and actually a good few others.
Ring Racers converts some open source version of Doom into a Mario kart like. It has working online, mods, but the mechanics may take a few hours to grasp. Its very good for what it is.
Horizon for Fallout 4 took the game from a boring 15 hour novelty to a 450 hour obsession for me. Combat is more deep, survival mechanics are more interesting, settlement building / management is exponentially cooler & more powerful, there’s a simulated economy, lots of QoL features, and much more. It’s basically what everyone imagined/hoped FO4 would be when it was first teased. My favorite mod of all time. PLAY IT!: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17374
I'll add my personal favourites, the agot mods for both ck2 and ck3. The ck2 mod is fully featured and complete. The ck3 mod is still in beta phase. They're about to add dragons soon, but it already overhauls and changes the game so much it's amazing. The ck2 mod is actually how I got into paradox grand strategy games!
A bit late but you might like [Slave Zero X: Episode Enyo](https://poppyworks.itch.io/episode-enyo). It is a total conversion for Quake 1 set in the Slave Zero universe by the Slave Zero X developer (it is still an FPS, not a platformer like SZX).
Median XL (Diablo 2) is hitting all the right notes for me right now. It's my 2nd playthrough (played it years ago) and it's even more polished now.
It's on Season 36 or so now. Full online multiplayer, all new skills and trees for every class, new items, runes, runewords, tons of new bosses, enemies and challenges.
Level cap is 150 and the custom boss challenges are wild. Highly recommended if you don't mind the older engine.
The pacing is perfect between farming zones and doing boss challenges to get unique small charms. There's like 30 of them, and the boss fights are very well made (though some are extremely difficult).
The Dark Mod is now Standalone and still free. Community has made absolutely massive maps and campaigns.
It's the classic Thief/Thief 2 gameplay but in the Doom 3/id Tech 4 game engine.
It's absolutely wonderful, only wish there was VR support.
Natural Selection for halflife
Day of Defeat, another halflife mod
Action Quake, Action Quake 2
The Specialists - Halflife 1 mod
Gloom - Quake 2
Earth's Special Forces - Dragonball Z multiplayer mod for halflife
Killing floor, insurgency, chivalry, the forgotten city, Dayz, and Dota were all mods that became good enough to receive their own games As for actual mods, there’s a ton of source engine mods that turn out great like Entropy Zero 1/2, Portal Stories Mel, Raising the Bar Redux, and Black Mesa. For non-source engine mods there’s Chronicles of Myrtana for Gothic, STALKER Anomaly/Gamma, Starwind for Morrowind and dozens of fantastic overhauls for Mount And Blade Warband.
Prophecy of Pendor my beloved
Big fan of PoP. I haven't tried M&B 2 yet. I don't know if it can capture the feeling of playing through M&B the first time round with PoP.
Red Orchestra is another.
Also, Counter Strike and Team Fortress.
Wait starwind is finished???
This falls into the category of ambitious but not/never finished I think. It's just a HUGE undertaking.
And insurgency itself spawned day of infamy, which was absurdly great
Enderal is another good Skyrim-based one.
Mount & Blade Bannerlord also has some gems already, namely Realm of Thrones and The old Realms (warhammer fantasy), both are amazing
The community is long gone, but I miss The Hidden as a Source mod.
Black Mesa.
Counter strike ;) Dota
[удалено]
It's better than the official reskin of Stellaris into a Star Trek game lmao
[удалено]
It and surviving the abyss being dropped makes me think Paradox has some cash flow issues. If it's not a surefire hit, drop dev/support.
I'd sincerely recommend never giving Paradox money every again, under any circumstances. I gave up on them at the start of '22, and I should have a ***lot*** sooner. I'm serious. They kill your dog. They'll fuck your mum.
Same, it was around early 2022 for me, with the terrible CK3 support culminating with the horribly disappointing Royal Court DLC. They somehow turned the royal edition of CK3 from what should have been a good deal into making me feel ripped off 18 months after the actual purchase.
> They kill your dog. So they're the ATF?
Nah, they're from InstaCart. (Actress Angie Harmon's dog shot and killed by InstaCart driver.)
In that vein, sins of a solar empire has some truly great total conversion for most beloved star franchises
Medieval 2: Total War's Third Age mod turned the game into LOTR
Third age is really outdated btw, nowadays better use Divide and Conquer.
That is a distinctly not very middle-earth name, but cool, I'm going to check this out
The Song of Ice and Fire/GoT conversion for Crusader Kings 2/3
Damn I need to go back to CK3 now!
Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and a few more started as total conversion mods for Half-Life 1. Insurgency was a mod for Counter-Strike Source. DOTA was a mod for Warcraft. Forgotten City and Enderal started as mods for Skyrim. If we’re talking about mods for their own games that didn’t also become new games IP themselves then there are; Fallout New California and Fallout Frontier for Fallout New Vegas. Sins of the Prophets for Sins of a Solar Empire. Republic at War for Star Wars: Empire at War. The STALKER games have a bunch but most well known is STALKER Anomaly and STALKER GAMMA. Just off the top of my head, there’s a ton more.
The wild thing is Team Fortress is even older again, it started as a mod for Quake 1
Insurgency was a HL2 mod.
Bro dont forget EFP, way better than GAMMA
> Empire at War I'm a big fan of Awakening of the Rebellion, myself.
Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos. It‘s a Gothic II mod and maybe the best mod I have ever played. I even preferred it over Enderal (only comparing them based on enjoyment). It was incredible that a mod for a seemingly very outdated game is better than many new AAA releases.
As a huge gothic 2 fan I am shocked i've never heard of this! thanks for sharing
Damn, that's high praise, because Enderal is *immaculate!*
Enderal is one of my favourite games ever (let alone it's a mod of another game) the story is incredibly rich and thought provoking.
It's actually what made me post this. I discovered it via another reddit post. I don't think many people know it and it's really, really something. The mod packs can make it look modern as well but I couldn't get them working.
XCOM Long War, and Long War 2
Ayy, came back to playing Long War of the Chosen for a week or two now and it's okay, but after seeing chimera squad - I just don't know what's gonna happen to X-COM man.
Wasn't that just a spinoff?
Well yes, but actually no. A smaller release to test the waters in a new direction. Apparently they're very happy with how it turned out setting wise - and will continue with the plot of "all the aliens live mostly peacefully, in big cities, with the humans, 5 years after X-COM 2." So in other words, Rip X-COM.
Chimera squad is shit right?
It's a perfectly fine spin off but a lot of the people that made Xcom 2 left the studio after Midnight Suns so people are worried.
It's a very good tactics game that launched at around $20. People comparing it to much more expensive games are being unfair. I like xcom2 war of the chosen more than chimera squad but it's not really a fair comparison.
In majority: yes However, it does have some sweet new additions to the series. [I'd recommend this video on the topic.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P3_HQuFyAis)
Great large all encompassing mods, and I personally love them, but really not total conversions.
The amount of depth they add to the games they might as well be total conversion mods, I've only ever played long war X-COM and can't play vanilla it's just too simplistic
I agree about he depth but a total conversion is by definition a conversion of the game to another game/universe /lore/style. They're the same one, just much deeper.
Stalker Anomaly and more so Stalker GAMMA
The anbennar mod for EU4 is a dnd style fantasy world that currently has all but one of their continents finished.
There is so much in anbennar to learn it's amazing, plus the fact it's still got a lot of potential still unrealised I can easily see myself playing thousands of hours in the mod
I have over a thousand hours in anbennar and I’m still finding stuff to do.
Enderal and Chronicles of Myrtana are by far the best mods ever made and easily one of the best standalone games out there
Beyond Skyrim is a project that aims to add more territories around Skyrim. For now they've only finished one (Bruma), and while it isn't as extensive as Enderal it's still quite good. Development for other regions seems to have slowed down unfortunately. Tamriel Rebuilt - not quite a total conversion but a major expansion to Morrowind, it adds several locations outside of Vvardenfell, at the moment it has more content than the vanilla game. There are several Hearts of Iron 4 total conversions that are quite extensive. I've never played it but Equestria at War is meant to be one of the biggest and best, it's My Little Pony themed. Some other Paradox games have total conversions too, like the AGOT mod for CK2. Mount & Blade Warband has several. Perisno and Prophesy of Pendor are two big ones that come to mind, but there are others that are set in Japan, Europe, AGOT, etc. There's no voice acting or anything but the map is replaced, all (or almost all) villages, towns, and castles are new, as well as units, armours, and weapons. Often they have unique mods concerning diplomacy, economy, and other aspects. Space Exploration for Factorio was so good/popular that its creator was hired by the devs to make it part of the game, the upcoming Space Age DLC.
I wouldn't call Bruma finished, I tried it recently and only about 10% of the map they added is playable.
I mean county Bruma is finished, it was released as a prologue and tester, same thing my team did with fallout 3 remake, released the Pointlookout dlc first and the Pitt is coming soon. Admittedly the main game is still a while off but all quests are playable.
I feel like the Hearts of Iron to MLP (or, I guess, MLP to Hearts of Iron) pipeline might be worth exploring more deeply. You know, what sub-communities they might have in common, etc, etc.
Nazi’s. It’s Nazis.
Always has been
europa barbarorum II should get the nobel peace prize
Mental Omega for Red Alert 2 is pretty great, and it's still ongoing. There are plenty more for Red Alert 2, as well.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Dark\_Mod](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Mod) Lost track of the number of times I have played Thief 3 and then started Thief 4.
I love TDM so much, gives me so much more content to play in-between Thief 2 fan missions.
The Nameless Mod for Deus Ex
A Game of Thrones for Crusader Kings 2. Maybe CK3's version gets there someday but the CK2 one has a dozen or so bookmarks covering 300+ years of history all with their own events, and multiple gameplay systems created solely for the mod such as dragons, slavery and battlefield duels. And it even has some official but optional mods for new bookmarks that are thousands of years before the books.
Remnant from Ashes : hellmod completely changed the game and dlcs in such a great way
+1 for the Hellmod. Also looking forward to the team's mod for Remnant 2. Unrelated, is your username from Malazan?
It's not strictly a Total Conversion, but Vox Populi for Civ V it's a mod that received (and still is) years of support and it dwarfs the original game (and Civ VI) in terms of balance and AI. It's my way to go to scratch some Civ itch.
Seems like more of a really good rework. That's nice to know though. I get the itch occasionally so I'll try that
The classic Doom games have one of the best and oldest mod scenes around, and have done amazing things. Since the engine is open source, many Doom TC projects have become standalone games. Here's some examples of Doom TCs. - Batman Doom - Doom: The Golden Souls (series) - Harmony - Ashes 2063 - Sonic Robo Blast 2 - Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers - Adventures of Square
Don't forget Total Chaos
I always had a soft spot for Action Doom!
Haven't played it myself bur Total Chaos mod for doom seems pretty awesome. Yeah, doom. It does require remade doom engine though.
Ashes 2063
Counter Strike and Team Fortress both started as mod projects
Can't get much more "fully materialized" than that.
Factorio has a lot of mods/mod packs that change things massively, the most notable being Space Exploration which adds other planets, interplanetary logistics and has a playtime in the range of 300-500 hours to complete, it's so well done that the mods developer was hired by the factorio Devs. Another of note is seablock, it's a modification of the angels/bobs mods where you have to generate everything from water and are restricted to an island you have to expand yourself, think Minecraft SkyBlock. It is also incredibly long in terms of play time and it's basically a necessity to add mods to speed up time it takes that long at times. In general the modding scene for factorio puts every other game to shame, having all the modding infrastructure built into the game is amazing, I can search for, download, and update mods all within the game itself.
Is Diaspora any good? Does it still hold up? I never heard of it. I remember a Freespace 2 mod called Beyond the Red Line (or something to that effect) that I played the demo of maybe 10-15 years ago and they got the feeling of the Viper down cold, but there was only one or two missions and then production stalled out.
It's pretty unbelievably good, fully delivers. Nothing but the rain.
The two big Half Life Alyx conversions -- C17tyscape and Return to Rapture -- come to mind, but I haven't personally played them. Has anyone tried them? What did you think?
You still need a headset right?
Of course.
Most of the ones I really loved were old sourcemods that were mainly focused on multiplayer, so they aren't really easily playable anymore. Dystopia, Insurgency, Eternal Silence, etc. Obsessing over sourcemods was like my main hobby back in high school, put so many hours into Dystopia in particular, for a fair while it didn't even have more than one map, but when a map is as good as dys_vaccine, I guess I didn't need more.
Dimensions of the Machine and Call of the Machine isn't exactly a total conversion, but they are extremely ambitious mods for Quake and Quake 2 that do a remarkable job at extending the gameplay rhythms of each game beyond what was possible back then, creating a campaign that has modern design, but with gameplay sensibilities of old. It makes sense that they were such a tremendous success, of course, seeing as they were made by none other than MachineGames, the developers of the new Wolfenstein games. They're even canon, according to the Quake developers, though even the idea of a canon for the Quake games has always been a very nebulous concept. Strawberry Jam for Celeste is a collaborative mod project of over 350 people that adds 116 maps across a wide spectrum of difficulties. It dwarfs the base game in scope, though, as a mod project, its unsurprisingly uneven in quality. It's also got nine hours of original music, enough for them to sell five albums on Bandcamp with proceeds all going to Trans Lifeline. I would undoubtedly recommend playing the base game first, but this mod alone can keep you occupied for a couple hundred hours.
Stalker gamma comes to mind. That is a complete conversion with so many options its hard to tell where the mod starts and the core game ends
I see people mentioned AGOT for Crusader Kings 2, but there's other total conversion mods for CK2 that are also worth mentioning: Faerun - Forgotten Realms Total Conversion and Warcraft: Guardians of Azeroth. Faerun is still getting regular updates, last one was on the 9th of June, whereas Guardians of Azeroth sadly got abandoned in favor of the devs working on a Crusader Kings 3 version of the mod instead, but what's there is still fun to play with. For Crusader Kings 3, you have quite a few total conversion mods: Godherja - The Dying World (original setting), Princes of Darkness (Vampire: The Dark Ages IP), LOTR: Realms in Exile, A Game of Thrones and Warcraft: Guardians of Azeroth. For Stellaris, there's Star Trek: New Horizons and Star Trek: New Civilisations (not my typo, that's how the mod author named it), but that's pretty much it. I really wish someone made a decent 40k mod, but I won't be holding my breath.
Pirates, Vikings and Knights 2, Underhell, Nehrim/Enderal, True Stalker
Cry of Fear... Full on horror game based on I think CS or Half Life
Operator the Game is a total conversion for Insurgency and delivers on realistic, tactical gameplay. It's difficult, but all of the ammo and armor is way better than Insurgency. Shot placement matters. Real world ammo and armor with some of the best shotguns in any game ever. Has a ton to offer the tactical player.
Is that now this separate game in EA? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1913370/OPERATOR/
No that is unrelated and not nearly as tactical or realistic. OperatorTheGame.com
OPERATION TREBUCHET for Arma 3. Halo total conversion, one of the best realizations of the Halo IP in any medium imo.
Huh, never heard of this, now I'm tempted to get ARMA 3, always look at it during a sale but I recall trying it really early on and I didn't get the same feel from it like I did with Operation Flashpoint back in the day... never got into the ARMA franchise. Feel like in the past I've heard you need certain addons for some mods? that the case?
For some, yes. You can check on the right-hand side of the relevant workshop page for requirement for either DLC or other mods.
If you're into Paradox grand strategy games, Hearts of Iron IV has multiple very, very well done total conversions. * Millennium Dawn, which *completely* replaces the game with the world as it is in the year 2000, including entirely new mechanics like budgeting, social laws, political system that isn't "democratic/fascist/communist/other", etc. * Old World Blues, a *very* thoughtfully put together Fallout: New Vegas campaign. Just like the above, a large number of new mechanics and a completely reworked world. * Equestria at War. Yes, really. For some bizarre reason the *brony* community has one of the actually best, highest quality total conversions for HoI out there. It is remarkably well done, despite being set in the My Little Pony universe. * Kaiserreich, which rewrites the entire planet to an alt-history world where Germany won the first World War, and yet WW2 is still spinning up for other reasons. * The New Order, which is set in 1962 after Germany won WW2, but now is falling apart into a civil war and Europe is collapsing around it. There's also others I haven't played so can't attest to their quality, like The Great War (WW1) and a Cold War conversion. Seriously, the modding community around this game is insanely dedicated.
Fallout Dust (FNV mod) and Fallout Frost (Fo4 mod). Survival hardcore set in world spaces of their original games. Dust is ~20 years after the end of FNV where all the bad endings happened, and the Mojave is a giant death trap. Everything is hostile, and there's lore notes/clues/etc hidden all over the map. The only goal is to find a way to leave the Mojave in one piece (5 different endings). I haven't played Frost very much, but it's ~10 years after the bombs dropped. Almost everything is hostile, groups have been formed, and you are just trying to survive. They're also both pretty popular, so there have been a ton of community mods to patch weapons/armor/etc mods to work with them.
You probably don't mean retro games. But I have to mention the Aliens Total Conversion for classic Doom (1993). lul. It was so good and so underrated and undercommunicated. Incredible work. All graphics and sounds, and all levels for the first episode, were new, and portrayed the movie Aliens (1986). Some sounds replaced with suiting dialogue lines from the movie. The BFG-9000 replaced with the exoskeleton power loader. I loved it. Made by one guy. But small compared to modern games and mods of course.
It's impressive to have mods going before the internet. How were people even distributing that
It was in the very early internet era. I got internet in Norway in 1995 or 1996. There were several interesting public FTP servers, mainly in the US, by universities and others. They had things like free games and programs, and mods.
Star Wars Warlords - Homeworld 2, eventually moved to Sins of a Solar Empire. Call of Warhammer/Thirst of the Mad Gods - Medieval 2 Total War - Warhammer Fantasy total conversion Third Age - Medieval 2 Total War - Lord of the Rings total conversion Mechwarrior: Living Legends - Crysis
I just found out about [THUGPro](https://thpsx.com/) for Tony Hawk's Underground 2 today. Hopefully it'll be good. T.H.U.G. 2 is abandonware so it's free to boot.
Crusader Kings 2 A Game of Thrones Brings Westeros to the beloved strategy game by Paradox.
Garrys Mod Chivarly The Forgotten City
Black reliquary for darkest dungeon
Unification Mod for Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm. It is a mod that adds a while bunch of new, updated, lore/tabletop inspired, factions, units, and gameplay mechanics. It's a huge fusion of a bunch of different mods collated together by the community, and it's pretty much the only reason to play Soulstorm instead of Dark Crusade. IMO it's better than Titanium Wars, more encompassing, a bit more balanced, and it's everything Dawn of War III wishes it could've resembled. Absolutely amazing. I believe it's currently around it's 7.00+ release. Mandalore Gaming has an excellent video on YouTube about it, from a year or two back. I'd recommend it.
Natural Selection paved the way for the devs to become even more competent and pump out Subnautica I think NS and NS2 might be dead nowadays as they're multiplayer
Lord of the rings mod for medieval :Total War 2
Medieval 2 Total War to lord of the Rings
Medieval 2 Has an absolute fuckload of mods that over hall the game just massively from lotr, ASOIAF, Warhammer, Elder scrolls, you could go on. Skyrim has a Enderal and if you count it a few modlists that painstakingly keep lore accuracy but change as much of the gameplay and features as possible as well as adding in huge questlines that work in the world, and plenty more in that stage of not yet materialise. Mount & Blade Warband has got a good number as well like prophecies of pendor, LOTR, Feudal japan, 1800s europe, Medieval Europe, Star Wars, ASOIAF, etc. STALKER with Anonmaly / GAMMA and actually a good few others.
Gundam century (SC mod)
Ring Racers converts some open source version of Doom into a Mario kart like. It has working online, mods, but the mechanics may take a few hours to grasp. Its very good for what it is.
Watchdogs has an overhaul mod I plan on downloading soon. Saw a YouTube video about it, it’s pretty fleshed out.
Horizon for Fallout 4 took the game from a boring 15 hour novelty to a 450 hour obsession for me. Combat is more deep, survival mechanics are more interesting, settlement building / management is exponentially cooler & more powerful, there’s a simulated economy, lots of QoL features, and much more. It’s basically what everyone imagined/hoped FO4 would be when it was first teased. My favorite mod of all time. PLAY IT!: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17374
The Dark Mod started as a Doom 3 total conversion. The best successor to Thief 1/2 outside of Gloomwood.
I'll add my personal favourites, the agot mods for both ck2 and ck3. The ck2 mod is fully featured and complete. The ck3 mod is still in beta phase. They're about to add dragons soon, but it already overhauls and changes the game so much it's amazing. The ck2 mod is actually how I got into paradox grand strategy games!
Men of War Assult Squad 2 mod called ASV UMW 40k... seriously blow Dawn of War Games out of water seriously, dear old Relic got beatup by modders lol.
I'm going to say Median XL for Diablo II and Project Ascension for WoW.
Mechwarrior: Living Legends
the nameless mod for deus ex.
The Stanly Parable.
A bit late but you might like [Slave Zero X: Episode Enyo](https://poppyworks.itch.io/episode-enyo). It is a total conversion for Quake 1 set in the Slave Zero universe by the Slave Zero X developer (it is still an FPS, not a platformer like SZX).
Median XL (Diablo 2) is hitting all the right notes for me right now. It's my 2nd playthrough (played it years ago) and it's even more polished now. It's on Season 36 or so now. Full online multiplayer, all new skills and trees for every class, new items, runes, runewords, tons of new bosses, enemies and challenges. Level cap is 150 and the custom boss challenges are wild. Highly recommended if you don't mind the older engine. The pacing is perfect between farming zones and doing boss challenges to get unique small charms. There's like 30 of them, and the boss fights are very well made (though some are extremely difficult).
The Dark Mod is now Standalone and still free. Community has made absolutely massive maps and campaigns. It's the classic Thief/Thief 2 gameplay but in the Doom 3/id Tech 4 game engine. It's absolutely wonderful, only wish there was VR support.
Natural Selection for halflife Day of Defeat, another halflife mod Action Quake, Action Quake 2 The Specialists - Halflife 1 mod Gloom - Quake 2 Earth's Special Forces - Dragonball Z multiplayer mod for halflife
Seamless coop in Elden ring is forever goated.
It is not a total conversion in even the vaguest sense, though 🤔
Agreed, buy hey it's a still a conversion mod that does completely injects new life into the game with the usage of other mods along side it.
Not a conversion mod, just a mod.
it literally changes the entire dynamic of a system in the game.
Does Enderal have Captions? Not a fan of the human voice
I find _most_ of the voice acting to be good, at least for major characters. It does have captions if you want them, yes