A Call to Arms news - Dark Messiah: Co-op mod for Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

Hello everyone, it's been a long time since I've written an update but rest assured we haven't been sitting around doing nothing. We had our 4 year anniversary of working on the mod a few months back, but we didn't really get to celebrate it. Since it's our birthday and we can party when we want to, why not release an RTX toolkit? On top of that, let's and while we are late to celebrate it, we want to do so by releasing a little toolkit for people to remaster Dark Messiah with RTX! Scroll through and let's shine a light on it!

Ubisoft News

Let’s kick it off with one of the biggest things to happen, even though at this point it's not really NEW because I've been mentioning it in the discord. In the last article I said that Ubisoft has given us legal approval pending some guidelines about what we can release and how to deliver it. Well, as of May, we have been given a completely blank check to do whatever we see fit with this mod and the development of the SDK! To quote Ubisoft, they “don't want to impose any sort of restrictions so that the community can really appreciate the full value of the work that's being put in here.”

This is really big news! We have been extremely cautious and worried about how much we’d be able to release and what we can make open source, but thanks to our approach and the support of this incredible community, we have their faith. I really want to emphasize that second part, because I always say we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if it wasn’t for the love of this community, and together we can really do anything.

Philosophy Going Forward

One of the biggest realizations I’ve had over the years is that there are a LOT of people that not only want Dark Messiah to have more mods, but are interested in modding themselves. Every time I talk about the SDK there's always a group of people that would come in and ask when it's getting released, or what they can do with it, Now that we have that green light, I want to help facilitate this as fast as possible, so throughout the future we’ll be trying our best to drop some different mod tools that hopefully anyone can use to make a mod for Dark Messiah, rather than wait for the full SDK to be out. While I am still very much invested in the co-op mod, I want to use my understanding and expertise within the game's reversed code to help others now. So far I'm thinking the process will go something like this:

1. Focus on one area of the SDK that people are most interested in
2. Isolated that one area as much as possible from the rest of the SDK components
3. Simplify it so minimal programming experience is needed
4. Release the new isolated module and get feedback from modders
5. Incorporate feedback, repeat with changes, until finally moving to next part of the SDK

As an introduction to this idea, I'm releasing the toolkit for the RTX Remix build so that others can make and dedicate themselves to a true RTX mod of Dark Messiah. If they encounter any issues or need any patches added, I would keep my doors open and do everything I can to help ensure their success. This wouldn't just be the RTX mod though of course, anyone out there who wants to make things should feel free to let me know! So with that segue, allow me to introduce our Dark Messiah RTX Toolkit!

Dark Messiah of RTX

In between waiting for Ubisoft’s response and some other work on the Co-op mod, Nvidia released their Portal RTX mod and subsequent RTX Remix open-source modules, and it got me thinking: How cool would Dark Messiah look with ray traced lighting? Unfortunately, the RTX Remix modules required the game to run in DX7, which Dark Messiah would always crash with. So I did what any other sane individual would do: got the game working with DX7! That obsession extends even further as a bunch of fixes and modifications were added to give the RTX modules a little more to work with, such as light rendering hacks and culling fixes. This entire process is very technical and I’ll be putting it up on the Knockout thread EVENTUALLY, but know it took about 5 months to get everything in a decent state.

Feature-wise the toolkit is very clear, but this is not a full mod mind you, just a kit to help people make their own RTX mod. The last thing that needs to be added is a bunch of texture remakes to help it blend better with the RTX Remix rendering, and for that you would have to create things in the RTX remix main toolset. On top of that, you may want to tweak the RTX configuration settings to be better for the game. That’s where you humble modders come in though!

If you're interested in messing around with this, you can download it by clicking the button below and going to our wiki! There's information about how to download, how to install, and more. We'll also be updating it with even more information to make it easier to understand every step of the RTX toolkit, so lookout for that!

Working With the Community

Now let’s get into the co-op mod, since the call to arms isn't just for all the modders out there who want to work on Dark Messiah RTX. We want to expand the team here, and we want to do it in a way that really captures the spirit of how we've been developing this mod and communicating with the community. So, while we are looking for specific roles to be filled, we are open to everyone at any skill level. Whether you love to make models or love to play the game, we want you. Whether you want to go level by level and give us insight on what encounters and areas might be problematic for co-op, or you want to make a level or write a story, we want you. As a few examples, take a look at some of the highlighted roles that are below:

• 3D Modellers
• Character Artists
• Mappers
• Scripters
• Playtesters

I'll stress again that we could not have gotten this far without the community so it only makes sense that we, together, channel the love that Arkane put into their game, with the love we have just playing it. If you're interested, click this beautiful icon to be taken to our application page where we can get to know you a little bit.

Developer Diary

I haven't done a developer diary in some time, but seeing as this is a large-ish update, I've put up a little video giving more insight on our philosophies going forward and some ideas for what we would be doing. You can watch that over here:

Closing Remarks

As always, feel free to follow any of our socials and drop a message if you have any questions or want to talk. While I have been increasingly busy with things, I have been dedicating time to answering people. Plus, it's a good time now more than ever to get to know the community, you may be working with them in the future! A very special thanks as well to the people in the RTX Showcase discord, as well as Mark (The NVIDIA God Tier Engineer) who helped me get a handle on all the RTX capabilities and pitfalls!

Discord: Discord.gg

YouTube: Youtube.com

Twitter: Twitter.com