Mod Spotlight: The Dark Mod

[IamLEAM1983]

Squeenix got its hands on an extremely divisive title, it seems. I'm one of those who believes that the detractors of the new Thief reboot are slightly caught up in the memories the first three games might have spawned. The sad truth is that in North America, there's really no such thing as a “hardcore” gamer culture, anymore. To survive their inflated budgets, most AAA titles have to pander to everyone. The most cost-effective means of doing this is of making the basic gameplay easier. That seems to have been the undoing of this revamped telling of Garrett's adventures. I personally highly enjoy the reboot, but I tried to give the other options a fair shot. One of them that stuck out was The Dark Mod, a former Doom 3 total conversion that's recently gone stand-alone.

What is The Dark Mod? Structurally, it's Thief II wrapped in the coils of Doom 3's engine. That means crisper shadows, better-looking character models and interiors, and structurally identical gameplay to Ion Storm's time spent behind the Master Thief's helm. Being rooted in the mod culture and having gone stand-alone, The Dark Mod is completely free and doesn't require Doom 3.

Narratively, it's also technically Thief II, but copyright infringement fears pushed the small team to design its own universe and lore. You've got the same Medieval Steampunk flavor, the same stealth-based levels and other horror-themed ones. You've got cultists and engineers and ersatzes of the Builder and the Trickster – the whole package.

What it is, also, is punishingly oldschool. No aides or tweaks exist here, no maps can be found, no objective indicators will tell you where you need to go. As with the older Thief titles, the only way to make progress is to explore on your own. Some will appreciate this, others will not. The Dark Mod isn't likely to ever see a sequel, largely because it comes with a robust in-game browser and downloader of additional campaigns and separate maps. There's no real need for a sequel, when you can just fire Doom 3, cheat your way to the level editor and from there, design away using the mod's own SDK.

Color this taffer impressed – but a little unsure as to his abilities in an actually punishing stealth-based context. It's nice to know that those who found that Eidos Montreal's effort to be unsatisfactory happen to have an alternative.