For the past few weeks, I’ve been obsessing a bit about the Resident Evil 2 remake. Not the game itself which I’m sure is very fine, but rather the mod community that keeps thinking of ways to absolutely blow me away. Whether it’s Thomas the Tank Engine, DMX, or a completely misguided thong, seeing how modders can drastically alter the mood of the game with a character or music swap never ceases to astound and amuse me.
And it’s not just that game. I’ve been fascinated with mods for as long as I’ve been reading about video games. I wasn’t a PC gamer growing up, so hearing about how two people took the Half-Life game engine and created Counter-Strike is blew my mind. The closest I’ve come to something like that is with TimeSplitters 2 and its extensive map editor. I spent hours crafting labyrinths in my GameCube copy of the game only to never be able to share them with anyone. Had I actually owned a decent gaming PC in the ‘90s, I probably would have immersed myself in the modding community, especially the Quake level scene.
Quake was id Software’s follow-up to the genre-defining Doom and it included the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. The move was spurred by player-designed custom levels in the Doom engine, and their inclusion created an army of dedicated level designers that is still going strong today. One of those designers was Jeremiah Fox, also known as KillPixel. After toiling away in the Quake community, Fox decided to try his hand at making a full-fledged game. The end result of his work is Wrath: Aeon of Ruin.
Source: Destructoid 3D Realms is harnessing the power of the Quake engine for Wrath: Aeon of Ruin