As Voted For By Some Guys: Top 100 Mods Of The Year

It's harsh but fair to say that our coverage of the mod scene is not presently at its most abundant. This is because of our recent enrolment in The International Church of Code Purity. The thought of all those innocent, virgin games being corrupted into something Other by the greasy, hungry hands of third parties makes us sick to our very souls. Down with this sort of thing.

If you remain a heathen and have not joined The International Church of Code Purity, your pagan mind might enjoy browsing ModDB's player-voted round-up of the top 100 mods of the year. Don't ever darken our pristine doorstep again, mind.

The list is populated by a great many old favourites - in fact, the most recent games in there are Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 and Crusader Kings II. Nothing from 2013 has birthed a mod popular enough for this list. Is this simply a matter of games and their scenes needing to reach a certain maturity before the really good stuff emerges, or is that so many of the bigger games being cross-pollinated with their console versions is leaving traditional modding doors locked shut?

It's lovely to see the likes of Freelancer, Thief, Deus Ex, Doom, Homeworld II and STALKER still proving popular with the mod scene, though. In that perfect impossible world where I have time, there's so damn much still to explore for games I have loved well.

In a week's time, the list will be whittled down to a top 10, and later still an overall winner. Last year it was Black Mesa; deserved in its way, but it'd be lovely to see something original take the trophy this time around.

If you're wondering why I've used a screenshot from the 2009 mod of the year awards, it's because our move to a new server last night has left us temporarily unable to add new images to the site. We are all extremely pleased by this situation, and it is not annoying in the slightest.