For some, playing videogames is just the beginning - the real fun is customizing them. Modders rethink characters, retool weapons, and repaint gigabytes of scenery to fashion a completely new experience. That’s how the futuristic dystopias of the hit game Unreal Tournament 2004 became the gritty urban battleground of Red Orchestra: Combined Arms, a hyperrealistic replay of Europe’s eastern front in World War II. No mere makeover, the total-conversion mod pushed Unreal’s built-in scripting language to the limit, overhauling ballistics, damage, and basic movement to be truer to the laws of physics. The epic tweak consumed about 10 geek-years of work by a rotating crew of volunteers, who were in it mostly for the excitement of leaving their mark. Red Orchestra swept Nvidia’s Make Something Unreal modding contest last year, winning $370,000 and the right to release a stand-alone commercial version. Just remember, guys: It’s all fun and games until it becomes a real job.
- Lucas Graves
Modders transformed Unreal’s space-age fighters into Eastern Front soldiers in Red Orchestra.
Weapons work differently in Red Orchestra: Bullets and tank rounds-succumb to gravity instead of shooting into the stratosphere.
The soldiers in Red Orchestra are more flexible than Unreal fighters-they can lie down and peer around corners. It’s not war till you’re facedown in the dirt.
The vehicles in Unreal befit the game’s title, gliding over any landscape like hovercraft. Red Orchestra tanks slip and slide in muddy terrain.
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