Mod of the Year

Back for a 17th time, welcome to the 2018 Mod of the Year Awards. You will find no loot boxes, microtransactions, unlockables or DLC here - just amazing free mods made by dedicated creators for your enjoyment. For the next 4 weeks it is up to you to vote for your favorite mods so that they may make the top 100 which will be announced on the 11th of December.

There was plenty of blood & gore to go around last year, with the fan favourite Brutal Doom claiming top spot on the podium. Coming in second was the galactic spectacle Starwars II: Thrawn's Revenge II: Ascendancy followed by an alternative C&C timeline in the Twisted Insurrection modification. If you need a refresh of how last year's awards went down head on over to the top 10 countdown's for both players and editors to see who stood out among the pack.

Show your support and start smashing those vote buttons for your favorite mods (and if your favorite mod isn't listed encourage the team to add it). Developers need to feel the overwhelming power and groundswell of support for mods, which drive so much creativity and goodwill in games of all shapes and sizes. There's been some huge releases this year, make your vote count and we look forward to seeing who will climb to the top, and be crowned the 2018 Mod of the Year.

mod.io
Mod Awards proudly supported by mod.io

Launched in May 2018, mod.io is a powerful mod API for game developers to tap into the creativity of their playerbase. Take control of your mod community on all platforms and stores, to ignite a world of possibilities. Interested in mods and finding out more? Get started now or reach out to chat about our solutions for indies and big studios.
Report RSS Players Choice – Best Upcoming Mod 2018

After 20 days of voting, it is time to present the top still-in-development mods as picked by you, the players.

Posted by on

Welcome to the Players Choice: Best Upcoming Mods of 2018 Results! The following mods have been selected by ModDB readers from the Top 100 nominees to determine which mods they are most anticipating for future release.

Honourable Mentions

Before we present the winners, the following mods polled strongly and deserve our attention for either narrowly missing out, or they have previously placed in a best upcoming countdown and are ineligible to place again. These mods have significantly impressed us over 2018, and we are eagerly anticipating their future developments.


A redux of the cancelled mod from August 2016. Utilising content from developer repositories and some originally created parts, Half Life 2: Raising the Bar Redux will aim to recreate part of the vision the original developers had for the game, as well as developing our own. RTB:R centres around a thematic melding of the HL2 Alpha, Beta, and Retail concepts, as well as our own ideas, to create a unique and complete experience.



A C&C Generals remake, built on Red Alert 3 engine, featuring great performance, no lag, no desync, new maps, new units and more cool stuff! Total Red Alert 3 conversion. Port of C&C Generals Game as close as possible. Powerful SAGE 2.0 Engine and RNA Renderer. Powerful networking engine, no more random desync errors for no reason. Remakes of C&C Generals Maps. Beautiful Post Processing effects ( HDR, CC, etc. ). Stunning Particle Effects. DynLight emmiters for better effects expression. Enhanced RNA Renderer. Smart adaptive AI, which react and adapt to all your moves.



A massive story expansion for Skyrim with 30+ hours of original content. Visit the valley of Druadach and embark on an epic quest to bring peace to this war-torn region. The mod adds a new region, three faction questlines, non-linear quests, dungeons, new weapons/armor and more. Your actions will determine the fate of Druadach Valley. For better... or for much worse.



Half-Life 2 Classic is a Half-Life 1 mod that aims to recreate the entirety of Half-Life 2. Why? Mainly, just for fun, but also because a lot of people like how the goldsrc engine feels, or enjoy the gameplay or Half-Life more than Half-Life 2. It's also a way to see what Half-Life 2 could have looked like in the limits of Goldsrc, if valve never developed the Source engine.



Dead Air is a full-scale S.T.A.L.K.E.R. modification based on Call of Chernobyl. It changes all aspects of the game, from graphics, audio, and special effects to various gameplay and AI features. The modification evolves from the ideas started in Call of Misery, a previous project from the mod’s author. Major inspirations for Dead Air have been projects such as NLC, MISERY, Autumn Aurora, and OGSE. Dead Air prioritizes the development of the game platform’s potential, gameplay complexity, and attention to detail, along with addressing both the quality and quantity of all content.


Congratulations to every winner in the Player's Choice: Best Upcoming Mods of 2018! Congratulations too to every mod who was nominated and participated in voting. With the Best Upcoming Mods announced, the final Mod of the Year results will go live on December 28.

Continue Reading: Players Choice | Editors Choice


Post comment Comments
Sgt.Headcrab
Sgt.Headcrab

Huh, this is terrible!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+31 votes
The_uaredead
The_uaredead

>RTB:R ranked in-general
>Out ranked Operation Black Mes

The ModDB community never fails to disapoint me.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+29 votes
Tabajara77
Tabajara77

It's because Operation Black Mesa has previously won "Best Upcoming" many times in the past years. They can't just continuously be ranked among others. Which is why they are on "Honourable Mentions".

That is my guess.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+31 votes
Tabajara77
Tabajara77

Congratz to Raising the Bar Redux and HL Classic!

Operation Black Mesa always on the spotlight! Well deserved!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+4 votes
ElectroNukeRepublic
ElectroNukeRepublic

Battlefront 3 Legacy needs a new release. It was scheduled before Christmas and I really want to play Coruscant without crashes.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
Quadro283
Quadro283

How and why the hell did RTB:R get on the list?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+14 votes
Gunship_Mark_II
Gunship_Mark_II

Oh wow, thank you so much everyone, that was kind of unexpected :D

Reply Good karma Bad karma+29 votes
egozi44
egozi44

Just shows how your hard work eventually pay back mate ;)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+4 votes
Madin
Madin

Never expected my vote to count to anything. Just goes to show it is always worth a try!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
theredmenace_
theredmenace_

Congrats to the HL and C&C modding communities!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+7 votes
zsinjsempire
zsinjsempire

that was a cool vote!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
WeeGee9000
WeeGee9000

(buried)

Oh come on. Are people ever going to get tired of Half-Life 1 and 2's gameplay? Yes, they still are the best kind of FPS games to date, and have really good quality mods, but come on!

Am I seriously the only one that's grown so used to their gameplay and story that it's getting really stale? Like, REALLY stale?!

There is only so much you can do with the story and gameplay of a single game before it gets done to death, especially considering the time Half-Life 1 and 2 have been out. And all the community regurgitates now are remakes, and mods with the same story, protagonists and gameplay?

Seriously, how many Half-Life 1 remakes, for example, do we actually need? There are like, 3 or 4 being made right now. Why? How many times do we have play the same game with a different makeup?

Ugh. Props to mods like Entropy, Element 120 and Lambda Wars for trying something different with their material.

I really appreciate the modding community for HL 1 and 2. I really do. But I don't think most of what it's creating deserves to be on a Top 5 list, when you consider all the other mods for other games that are pushing things forward. It's really time to move on from what has already been done.

And crap this was waaay longer than i thought it would be.

Reply Good karma Bad karma-6 votes
Tabajara77
Tabajara77

The guy from HL Classic is remaking Half-Life 2's dynamic features to work with GoldSrc engine. He even managed to make the physgun to work. How cool is that?

There are plenty of ideas and opportunities in the modding community. Let them have it.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
Strelok_Freeman
Strelok_Freeman

(buried)

stfu and don't download anything "pure" hl related lol, how easy is that

Reply Good karma Bad karma-8 votes
MAVERICKFACTOR
MAVERICKFACTOR

No Mental Omega and No Contra? heartbroken :(

Reply Good karma Bad karma-4 votes
Madin
Madin

"Upcoming Mods"...

Reply Good karma Bad karma+11 votes
Zan_HedonDev
Zan_HedonDev

Is there going to be a list showing the place/order of all the top 100 mods?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
Lanforse
Lanforse

Yay!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
Reyslin_Abberfall
Reyslin_Abberfall

Congrats!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Aspirant
Aspirant

Congratulations! I don’t know if you consider such a result to be a worthy evaluation of the effort invested, but I think so) Thank you for both projects that I have been playing for a year now. I am glad that your personal ideas that you were able to implement in the DA, appealed to so many people. Happy holidays to you, the team and, of course, the community! Success at the main work and at mod building! I look forward to the release and new projects. Sleep more and be happy)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
feco91
feco91

Yay Lordbound!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
KrispyOS
KrispyOS

Thanks for disappointing me.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+6 votes
Burntstrobe
Burntstrobe

Thank you for the Honorable Mentions, our team is working hard to release very soon

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
Unikraken
Unikraken

Thanks for the honorable mention! Congrats to the winners! Make the fans proud!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
OnyeNacho
OnyeNacho

No spot for Hedon?!?

I was hoping I'd see the mod on here.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Zan_HedonDev
Zan_HedonDev

Yeah, pity I couldn't get any mention but I was at least hoping to know Hedon's position. Did it get 6th place or 99th place? :D

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
TheLastJedi
TheLastJedi

Am i the only one disappointed about Doom: The Golden Souls 2 not being on ANY of the lists?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Xorras
Xorras

What about editors choice for upcoming mods?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Zan_HedonDev
Zan_HedonDev

There's just one for most anticipated mod and it was given to a Skyrim mod, check the article :^)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
INtense! Staff
INtense!

Congratulations to all winners - looking forward to seeing these come out, including the honorable mentions (you cannot win upcoming twice unless mitigating circumstances allows it)

Reply Good karma+4 votes
Amish_
Amish_

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
B4RR3l
B4RR3l

HL again? they are not even good

Reply Good karma Bad karma0 votes
Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account: