I used up play a ton of Doom mods years ago and a lot of the TCs were fun but lacked substance beyond the surface. Some of the new ones are cool but overly complex. (The Sonic cart game has an hour long tutorial before you start). I was a big fan of Simon’s Destiny, the Castlevania mod for Doom.
Basically I’m looking to see suggestions for free games or total conversions that are worth playing. Before I go spending money onSteam releases, I wanna check out what I might have missed the last few years.
I really enjoyed The Last Days of the Third Age, a lord of the rings TC for Mount and Blade: Warband.
It takes Warband’s medieval lord sim and focuses hard on the warfare side of things with lots of huge battles on giant maps, but even tiny skirmishes can affect a faction’s strength. (And with so many factions on both sides of the War of the Ring, you need to pick what to focus on)
There are several good total conversions for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. Star Trek Armada 3 is the most complete overhaul I’ve played for it. I’m a big fan of Halo spaceships and the Sins of the Prophets mod is the closest thing I’ve seen capture the asynchronous battle between UNSC and Covenant ships. There are others for Star Wars and Stargate that I hear are good, but I have not tried them.
Enderal, a total conversion mod for Skyrim. Free, just requires ownership of the skyrim base game or special edition (there’s a version for either).
Has a whole new map, reworked classes, changes to combat, banger OST (here’s my favorite, hits incredibly hard when you’re listening to it in-game at a tavern) and the story is just incredible. I still think about it, and the choices I made, years later. Dozens of hours long, moreso if you are a completionist.
Beyond All Reason is an open source RTS similar to Total War. Here is their website.
BAR is awesome, but it’s nothing like Total war, it’s similar to Supreme commander or total annihilation.
If you haven’t already played it, DOOM: The Golden Souls is probably the best total conversion you can find. Just S tier all around. Adventures of Square is also pretty good despite looking a bit simple.
If you’re looking for free games in general, might I recommend Megaman Maker? There’s an absolutely insane amount of content, and the level editor itself is very fun to use.
Sunk 2000hrs into Warframe without paying a dime. Also Path of Exile is a nice fair free 2 play game. For total conversions try Fallout new Vegas and mount and blade
I recently found out about the Zelda: Link to the Past randomizer community. Essentially there is a method to modify the original game to randomize the item locations and other aspects of the game while ensuring the game can be completed. Each game has a seed so you can look it up if you get to stuck. I played through it once and it was a really interesting challenge since I didn’t get the bow until 60% of the way through the game.
I really enjoy Mindustry, it’s kind of like Factorio
