Captain Walker awakens after the helicopter crash where it all started: with a recon mission through the stormwall into the doomed city of Dubai. Immediately, he can tell that things aren't what they seem. Red-hot sands cover the ground, matching the eerie maroon sky. His equipment is more worn-down and doesn't function the way he remembers. Worst of all are the inhabitants of the city: monsters and ghoulish creatures pulled from Walker's worst nightmares.
Walker has been trapped in his personal hell. His only chance to escape is to relive Delta's disastrous mission to atone. Even the loading screens between levels have turned on him, mocking his plight with scornful comments on his hero complex and depravity. Can he escape his nightmare, or is he doomed to continue repeating the darkest days of his life?
Spec Ops: Eternal Penance emphasizes resource management, intense and quick firefights, and nightmarish environments. Weapons get complete overhauls, from damage buffs to magazine decreases to skull-destroying headshots. Enemies appear as nightmarish beings rendered bloodied or gored by the aftermath of Delta's operations in Dubai.
After 5 months of on-and-off work, Spec Ops: Eternal Penance has released! As mentioned in the previous news post, it was a real touch-and-go sort of situation, so I'm glad I got everything in working order. I'm excited to see what players make of the new atmosphere, guns, and enemies!
Players used to playthroughs of SO:TL will have to learn new strategies and methods for survival, particularly with automatic weapons being less common and ammo being scarcer. Underpowered guns like the M9 and W1300 have new leases on life with improved range and damage values, while stronger weapons like the P90 have gotten some nerfs to keep them competitive but less-overpowering.
Multiplayer stats are not affected by this mod, so you can hop right into a Chaos/Attrition/etc. match without issue. The guns will still have their different appearances, but that's the only real change to carry over. No need to worry about guns suddenly being underpowered or overpowered if you play the game for its MP modes!
Everything has been organized to make installation easy. It helps that Spec Ops actually has some support for modded UPK files in its DLC1 folder, allowing the game to prioritize modded files in custom folders there without overwriting the regular game's files. The only exception is the SRGame file, which must be overwritten no matter what. In theory, this would also make uninstalling the mod less taxing - just remove or delete the Eternal Penance folder, restore the original files in My Games/SpecOps-TheLine, and have Steam verify the game's files.
When finishing a project like this, one of the first questions that comes to my mind is "what now?" It's a tricky thing to answer. I've tossed around some concepts, particularly involving the co-op levels, but I don't have any immediate plans to pursue another large-scale mod like this. I would prefer to focus on smaller projects, like seeing how some seemingly unused weapon stats work or trying to import the MP-exclusive weapons into the campaign. We'll see how those go.
For now, I'm just going to kick back and have some fun with the mod. I hope you all will do the same!
-Yossarian
Tools like UPK Explorer have allowed SO:TL mods to go above and beyond stat changes and rebalances. Eternal Penance aims to explore the potential of these...
The full collection of modified UPK, INI, and localization files needed to make Eternal Penance work.
is this compatible with gog? When I load the main menu it still says Spec Ops The Line vs your screenshot saying Eternal Penance
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Thanks for making this mod
It's great to see this underrated gem can be modded. ^-^
I totally agree! It was thrilling to get it working despite the trial and error needed. I hope to encourage others to give it a shot.