Dominic Tarason

On June 19th, the next quarterly update for Path Of Exile - the free-to-play action RPG - will give players the chance to trade blood-soaked knives for green fingers. It's called Harvest, and it tasks you with managing a garden. Of course, your glowing nocturnal plants will blossom into monsters needing slaying, but this should provide some downtime between dungeon crawls in a game that…

Tagged with feature, Grinding Gear Games, preview, Path of Exile.

No matter what may happen to Star Wars, we'll always have lightsabers. That, and loads of great games. Among the best to grace the PC is the Jedi Knight series, the last in its line being Raven's Jedi Academy. It may owe some of its longevity as a multiplayer staple to its engine, a heavily modified Quake 3 codebase, and it can definitely chalk up…

Tagged with feature, Modder Superior, mods, Raven Software, Star Wars Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy.

Dark Souls modders are forged in the flames of adversity. While mostly limited to technical improvements (such as Durante's fixes for the wonky original PC port) and small texture packs, the past few years have brought about a whole new genre of Souls mods for all three games. While limited in what can be added to the trilogy (though breakthroughs are being made on that…

Tagged with feature, From Software, Modder Superior, mods, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, Dark Souls: Remastered.

Almost five years and a surprisingly good TV series later, and The Witcher 3 is still going strong; a surprising turn of events given how static the game has remained these past few years. Beyond a round of free DLC and two excellent expansions, Geralt Of Rivia's grand quest to become a cool step-dad and maybe settle down at a vineyard in the south of…

Tagged with CD Projekt Red, feature, Modder Superior, mods, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Few games have aged as gracefully as Homeworld. Even without modern enhancements, Relic's 1999 space opera RTS is still a looker, carried by sharp ship designs, low-fi but evocative audio and some gorgeous nebula backdrops. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement; between Gearbox's Homeworld Remastered Collection and a fresh wave of interest in the upcoming sequel, modders have been returning to their…

Tagged with feature, Gearbox Software, Modder Superior, mods, Relic Entertainment, Homeworld 2, Homeworld HD, Homeworld Remastered Collection, Homeworld: Cataclysm.

Almost five and a half years ago, I made my RPS debut looking at what creative modders for Tabletop Simulator were doing. While frequently of grey legality (the majority of items on the Steam Workshop are still unofficial digital reproductions of expensive physical games), the platform is still thriving. Official adaptations of games for Berserk's virtual play-space are now sold more readily, but few take…

Tagged with Berserk Games, featured articles, Modder Superior, mods, Tabletop Simulator, Danganronpa, Tabletop Simulator.

Two weeks ago Auckland, New Zealand was the home of ExileCon, the first of possibly many conventions celebrating the increasingly popular action RPG Path Of Exile. While the mood was obviously buoyed by a trio of well-received announcements (a mobile spinoff, a pair of expansions, and Path Of Exile 2), what I found on the other side of the planet was a community and studio…

Tagged with ExileCon, feature, Grinding Gear Games, Path of Exile, Path Of Exile 2.

There's only a few weeks left in 2019, and we're fast approaching this year's Cacowards, Doomworld's annual community awards, so it feels only right to see what's been going on in the classic Doom modding scene these past few months.I'm beating the Cacowards to the punch, really, and giving you a handful of choice picks to get your teeth into early. We've got Doom 4…

Tagged with feature, free games, GZDoom, id Software, Modder Superior, mods, Wadaholic, Doom, Doom II, Total Chaos.

During their Saturday opening keynote presentation at ExileCon in Auckland, New Zealand, Grinding Gear Games announced three projects: Path Of Exile Mobile, a double expansion for POE this December, and Path Of Exile 2, due late next year. I got three hands on playthroughs of the sequel's show-floor demo, and I think all action RPG fans should be paying attention to it, even if you…

Tagged with ExileCon, feature, Grinding Gear Games, preview, Path of Exile, Path Of Exile 2.

The Arma series has a bit of a double identity. On one hand, you've got a hard-as-nails military sim shooter, pitting the fallibility of human senses up against a world populated by laser-accurate AI. On the other hand, you've got the ultra-moddable sandbox that spawned DayZ and (in turn) the battle royale genre as we know it. The Apelegs are connected to the Arma bone,…

Tagged with Altis Life Mod, Bohemia Interactive, feature, Modder Superior, mods, Arma 3, Arma 3 Apex.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is a game so nice, they used its name twice. Not to be confused with the DICE-developed (and still growing) Battlefield-esque shooter, the Pandemic-developed original incarnation is still considered the pinnacle of pick-up-and-play Star Wars fun by many. A messy team laser-fight with a slew of game modes for both solo or online play.But with Pandemic's demise sinking fan's hopes for…

Tagged with feature, LucasArts, Modder Superior, mods, Pandemic, Star Wars: Battlefront 2.

If mega-scale fantasy violence is your thing, Total War: Warhammer 2 (Total Warhammer to its friends) is a grand old time, and an affordable alternative to wasting your savings on miniatures. Earlier Total War games arguably needed mods to shine, but Creative Assembly's recent output hasn't had to lean so hard on user-made expansions and refinements. Not that this has stopped players from trying. While…

Tagged with feature, Modder Superior, mods, Sega, The Creative Assembly, Warhammer, Total War: Warhammer, Total War: Warhammer II, Total War: Warhammer II - Mortal Empires.

The series might have fizzled out awkwardly, but I'll always have a place in my heart for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Fast-paced strategy, three campaigns (and one expansion) of cornball FMV, respectably balanced multiplayer and it's good-looking even today. Despite being produced in just one year, EA LA even managed to cram in solid mod support. Cut to present day and there's still…

Tagged with EA LA, feature, Modder Superior, mods, Command & Conquer 3: The Forgotten, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.

The past few years have been amazing for fans of the gritty survival shooter sandbox series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Between a vague but permissive modding agreement and an engine-code leak, fans had all the tools they needed to make their own successor. The likes of Lost Alpha, Dead Air and the upcoming multiplayer Ray Of Hope are all impressive, but the recently re-released Anomaly is the closest we've seen to…

Tagged with feature, GSC Game World, Modder Superior, mods, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

I felt the rise of that old familiar feeling. I hated it. I welcomed it. We're going back to Max Payne 2. With Control out now and putting Remedy back on the map, we're diving into their 2003 hit, and back into a world of slow-motion gunplay, over-the-top twirling reloads and mods absolutely obsessed with The Matrix and early 2000s action movie soundtracks. In fairness,…

Tagged with feature, Max Payne 2, Modder Superior, mods, Max Payne, Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne, Max Payne 3.

It's good to be king, and even better to be a sorcerer commanding a swarm of the undead. While the Total War series has grown into more fantastical settings by itself, it was the fans to first stick pointy ears on the venerable strategy game. Thanks to its robust mod support Medieval 2: Total War still has a large and active modding scene. While there…

Tagged with feature, Modder Superior, mods, The Creative Assembly, Medieval II: Total War, Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms.

Welcome back, Commanders. I've returned to an expanded and finalised XCOM 2 this week. Since the launch of 2017's War Of The Chosen expansion and last year's Tactical Legacy Pack, things have been quiet on the XCOM front. The game is finally stabilised, giving modders a nice static test-bed to add new weapons, aliens and features to the squad tactics sandbox. Here's a deep dive…

Tagged with CreativeXenos, DerBK, feature, Firaxis Games, Modder Superior, mods, XCOM 2, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.

While ostensibly a subscription-based World Of Warcraft-alike, Final Fantasy XIV is secretly the biggest and probably best-written JRPG out there. It has made me cry over a bizarro-world Chocobo, and now features one of my favourite RPG villains ever. It has held my attention for five hundred hours, and it's updated more regularly than any comparable game I can think of.It's recently received another hefty…

Tagged with feature, Square Enix, Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.