Welcome to the Editor's Choice awards for the 2023 Mod of the Year Awards, where we show recognition to the mods from the past year that we've found to be personally deserving of attention. We've chosen a series of award categories which range from best singleplayer mod, to multiplayer, to most anticipated and to several more unique and theme related categories.
Best Singleplayer
A mod which brings extra depth or significance to an engrossing singleplayer experience.
Half-Life Alyx NoVR
For: Half-Life: Alyx
It feels right, that in the same year Half-Life celebrates its 25th anniversary - a game that makes the most recent installment to it's single-player campaign playable by all is our selection. HL Alyx NoVR does exactly what it states, and for everyone who doesn't own a VR headset, we're thankful.
Best Multiplayer
A mod which offers a new way to play with your friends.
Age of the Ring
For: Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King
This mod really has done it all, and won a ton of accolades from us and the players throughout its journey. You could easily excuse the team for slowing down, but for the 6th year straight they've released a major update for all RTS fans to enjoy and delve deeper into Middle Earth than ever before.
Best Graphical Overhaul
A mod which focuses on beatifying an older game with technical and artistic upgrades.
Resident Evil - Seamless HD Project v1.1
For: Resident Evil
Few games were more influential when they first launched, than the original Resident Evil, way back in 1996. So 27+ years on, its incredible that HD overhauls are coming out so players can relive the terrors in all their HD glory.
Best Overhaul Mod
A mod which overhauls a game, enhancing or changing it to be a whole new experience.
This mod stealth dropped a demo on us, and we've been eagerly following it's progress ever since. A complete overhaul of the default HL1 story, characters, weapons, locations and mechanics. Travel through time and explore unique locations - ranging from medieval castles to ancient underground temples, to sci-fi laboratories, futuristic cities and more. We can't wait to wreak havoc using the vast array of weapons on offer.
Best Continued Support
A mod which has continued to receive major updates and support, years after its original release.
FIFA Manager 2023
For: FIFA Manager 14
It's a mod not many will have encountered, but for those who play it - the tireless work from this team to bring all of the latest rosters and tournaments into FIFA Manager 14 has been going on for 9+ years straight. Serious commitment.
Expansion-worthy Award
This is a mod that we wouldn't be surprised to see as an official expansion,
or be worth paying money for.
Empire II
For: Empire: Total War
In 2023 v4 of this mod landed, and it now features a staggering 4500+ Units, 48 playable factions, 27 new cultures, and reworked and playable campaigns. It's polished and only getting better, and a must own for all Empire: Total War fans.
Historical Accuracy Award
A mod that dives into a period of history rarely touched upon by other games,
and does so with great attention to detail.
The American Civil War Mod: Revived!
This mod is a faithful revival of an older M&B: Warband mod called "A House Divided" which seeks to revamp and bring all details in line with the civil war period. Featuring advanced formations and fire orders this mod is made for love of the game, for the history, and for the gaming community.
Best Adaptation Award
A mod that uses the story or universe of a film, television show, or other property to
accurately recreate its world and vibe.
Dawn of the Dead
For: Men of War: Assault Squad 2
We're a sucker for anything featuring zombies - and this team has been updating this mod faster than the infected can take over the streets of New York City. Can't wait to see it continue to take shape and play as police forces, different military branches through the BlackWatch fictional story faction and usual survivors in main story campaign and additional missions.
Best Unique Twist
A mod that takes a game in a new and interesting direction.
When the year started, seeing Basketball being played in Doom was not on my bingo card, and yet here we are. The modding community never ceases to surprize and amaze, and we're thankful for it as this is one of those head scratches that must be played to be believed.
Most Anticipated
A mod which, though not yet released, has spent 2023 building incredible anticipation for it.
Dark Messiah: Co-op
For: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
It feels odd to be eagerly anticipating a mod for a 17 year old game, and yet the team behind Dark Messiah: Co-op have managed to do that. I guess nostalgia is a powerful force when you're running a mod community like ModDB for 21+ years now. We're a sucker for the classic games, and love to see them remastered and have multiplayer / coop elements added in to heighten the experience. Looking forward to further updates!
Supported by mod.io
The 2023 awards are proudly supported by mod.io. Launch an official mod community for your game with powerful moderation, discovery, events, marketplace and metrics systems, using our cross-platform mod SDKs and plugins for Unity and Unreal Engine. Interested in adding mods to your game and finding out more? Reach out for a demonstration.
What mods would you have picked given the chance? Let us know in the comments and get ready for the next announcement in a few days, the most anticipated mods and then the big one soon after that, the Top 10 Mods of 2023!
emoure vid deleted?
The GB_2 Development Team is so thankful & humbled to have Half-Life Alyx NoVR chosen as Editors Choice Best Single Player Mod of 2023!
We have made the mod better everyday through your community feedback, this is for all of you too!
We aren’t done yet!
Peace and love!
Congrats. You've earned it.
Imo the Empire 2 mod shouldn't deserve such an award, as a lot of its content was taken from other mods, mostly from the Pirates Uber Alles mod which doesn't receive recognition at all. Just my thoughts.
They literally credit the PUA team in their frontpage.
If the PUA team have no beef with the Empire 2 team, I see no problem that they're using its content.
If they have, they should reach an agreement by themselves, we're not in any of the mod teams and it's not our problem, it's theirs.
Those credits were added retroactively after the PUA team called them out for it, according to the PUA devs in their discord. The PUA devs did have beef with them because of that, but their leader Flavius seems like someone who dislikes quarrelling with others, so they just let them be, even when their work gets taken and they get no recognition for it. Besides, being a Russian dev team and non-English speakers, they can't do much to speak out about it in the English modding community.
Try playing those two mods side by side, you'll see how shockingly similar the Empire 2 mod is with PUA, aside from the unit bloat from even other mods, and a much buggier experience.
Being the main site for mods, I'm sure Moddb upholds modders' rights with regard to mod content and permissions.
Update: I just re-checked the Empire 2 mod page, now they have only the names of the PUA modders (and other modders) listed in the credits, whereas previously they listed everything that was "borrowed" from the PUA mod, which is the practically the majority of their mod's content. UI, flags, buildings, units, factions, scripts, events, map, etc., those were taken from the PUA mod.
To be fair, it seems like the Empire 2 devs are now working to create a unique identity for their mod, with late pike and shot and napoleonic era units and campaigns, but these are built off the base of the mod which looks almost just the PUA mod.
Yeah, let's see what the future holds for Empire 2, maybe they'll make their mod more unique.
Well it's not the first time the ppl from moddb have made some questionable decisions. I remember a lot of ppl were angry because of the awards for Brutal Doom.
To be fair, they probably don't follow any "drama" envolving mod creators (I don't either), so they don't know what's happening if no one report to them.
Anyway, like I said before, I'm not a mod developer, if they have some problems with each other, they should sort it out between themselves.
Just to add my 2 cents. There is a written consent between ETWII and PUA team that for the UI/Flags plus a small portion of the unit models (out of the 4500), as that is all that comes from PUA inside ETWII, the PUA dev team can use any content from ETWII and vice-versa. This has happened on some of the culture-oriented features, plus the, now-reknown, COOP campaign. As there is no beef between Developers I don't see the need to polarize the discussion between players, who can freely choose which experiences suit them the most, and we at ETWII do suggest trying all the mods for Empire and then settling on your personal favourite. ETWII does have some "never seen before" modding choices, that make the experience more hardcore in some regards. What ETWII has that is slightly different, is that it is an Open Source platform, that anyone can use as a base to create their own submods and mods. The best content gets incorporated into the base, but there is no strict coordination, if you wish to contribute for the fun of a videogame, you absolutely can! That's what Empire modding spirit should be, as it's a well known "hard-to-mod" game. Cheers!
Good to hear that. Thanks for clarifying.
We already declared, that there where conflicts and they are solved. We even communicated it on our Discord for maximum transparency.
As we are all modders by consent, there shouldn't be bad blood and there isnt.
Im sorry you feel about the mod the way you feel.
sincerly
Tonnes
Flavius and the PUA devs are just too kind.
Cool that you've settled it with them.
You've earned the recognition! TimeWarp looks like a truly beautiful mod. I'm so excited to eventually play it!
GG everyone and especially huge thanks to the HL Alyx NoVR team! 😄👍
Congrats to everyone here! Looking forward to TimeWarp!
Empire II being awarded whereas Pirates Uber Alles is a much better and polished experience is kinda sad.
But I hope the Empire 2 team is working on delivering their own vision.
HL Modding still alive and kickin'
i'm glad to have my mod make it here! thanks a lot!!
Empire II video is no where to be found.
I.gyazo.com
Wow that's really cool to be nominated! Thank you so much!
It is truly an honor to be given an award for the work I and all the volunteers did for the American Civil War Mod: Revived! Unexpected, but a very pleasant surprise to be sure! A big thank you to Moddb, and of course to the wider community out there who loves and supports the work we've done. :D
Congratulations to everyone.
Good work everyone!
great list congrats eveyone
Personally, I think it would be a shame to select HLAlyxNOVR as this year's Editor's Choice.
With a more ambitious vision, I expect the Alyx experience to evolve in a way that will translate well to NOVR players.
(Many have asked for enhanced enemies, but the shooting feel should be changed from that of a simple action shooter used by super armie like Gordon Freeman to something that even Aim takes a lot of effort, like the BODYCAM Free Aim Shooter)
The Dark Messiah Co-op team and I sincerely thank you for the love on the Dark Messiah mod. What started as a passion project made just by me 4 years ago has grown into a full fledged development team with mappers, modellers, programmers, writers, and more. This just reminded me I've gotta get around to writing another article before New Years to introduce the new mates!
To all the modders out there, it's impossible to know where you'll go when you start working on something. If you enjoy what you're doing, you'll be surprised just how far forward you'll actually get. It's incredible to see how talented the modding community of games are, so don't sell yourself short. You ARE one of the great modders, you just need to keep at it!