It should almost go without saying now that Doom 2 is all things to all people, in the most literal sense. Thanks to 25 years of evolution in modding tools, it’s Donkey Kong, Resident Evil and even Heroes of Might & Magic now, among other things.

The latest game to be swallowed by the all-consuming vortex of creativity that is the GZDoom-powered mod scene is Quake Champions. The arena FPS reboot may still be in public testing, but it’s already been systematically disassembled, stripped for parts, and launched today as Quake Champions: Doom Edition (or QC:DE for short), a mod for possibly the most enduring game in PC history.

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One of the few certainties in this ever-changing world is: right now, someone, somewhere, is remaking an old Bethesda open-world RPG inside a newer game from that series. Fans are working on bringing several Elder Scrolls games to several newer Elder Scrolls games, while others are trying to put Fallout 3 and Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas inside Fallout 4. The teams behind the Fallout 3 and New Vegas mods have both recently shown more of their work so coo go on, let’s have a look. (more…)

The game trailer is a sly creature. It wants to entertain you, to excite you, to embolden you with curiousity. But it also wants to sell you a bunch of code wrapped up in some 3D shapes. Some trailers turn out to be more artful than the game they re hawking, others plant sneaky emotions in your head with music. However, some are better than others. Here are the best conflagrations of light and noise in PC gaming.

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The Games Done Quick events are among my favourite parts of the gaming calendar. Showmanship, absurd levels of skill and a mountain of cash raised for good charitable causes for a week straight, twice a year. The winter event – Awesome Games Done Quick – starts this afternoon at 4:30 GMT and if you’ve never tuned in to watch one of these live on Twitch (or recorded on YouTube), then you’re missing out

While traditionally console-centric, recent years have seen a far higher percentage of PC titles (especially smaller indie games) demolished live, and the schedule for this coming week’s event looks to be continuing that trend.

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Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games.> But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol’ breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.

Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.

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We’ve previously covered Quake mega-mod Arcane Dimensions, which has become a cornerstone of modern Quake mapping thanks to its slew of new gameplay features, enemy types and weapons going a long way to refresh the formula of Id’s cyber-gothic classic without diluting its breakneck pacing and drum-tight combat loops.

Xmas Jam: 1024^3 is the latest group project to come from the quietly industrious func_msgboard mapping community. Built using Arcane Dimensions’ bag of tricks, it offers 11 new levels from 11 different creators, all adhering to a single restriction: the level must fit (roughly) within a tiny space, 1024 Quake map units cubed, approximately three seconds travel time across.

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Sitting at the intersection of several of my interests is Ghosts I-IV for Quake, a new mod which turns id Software’s gibtastic first-person shooter into a quiet walking simulator and couples it with a calmer soundtrack. While Quake’s original 1996 soundtrack is an industrial dirge by the popular beat combo Trent Reznor & The Nine Inchnails, this mod replaces it with tunes from their chilled-out 2008 album Ghosts I-IV – which is legally fine to include, thanks to its Creative Commons licensing. The mod is organised by JP LeBreton, a designer and level designer who worked on the first two BioShock games and has developed quite an interest in peacefully exploring seminal FPSs. (more…)

There are more wonderful games being released on PC each month than ever before. In such a time of plenty, it’s important that you spend your time as wisely as possible. Thankfully, we’re here to help. What follows are our picks for the best PC games ever made. (more…)

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.>

I wrote about this stonkingly beautiful and enormous mega-mod for the original Quake last year, recommending that y’all should play it, but it didn’t quite turn out as planned when fans and creators alike (politely) argued that the screenshots I’d used did not suitably sell the game. So, here are some screenshots of Arcane Dimension which hopefully will> convince you to give it a try. You really should, because it’s the next best (or maybe even better?) thing to getting a whole new Quake.

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My earliest memories of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall were of fear and excitement at the boundless possibilities of a true fantasy sandbox. Of amazement at the most comprehensive character creation screen I’d ever seen, and of deep annoyance when I managed to fall through the floor and into an endless void in the first minute of the game.

I’ve spent over twenty years waiting for someone to fix Daggerfall, and that dream seems tantalisingly close to being realised. Daggerfall Unity (Daggerfall ported to the Unity engine, shockingly, and something we’d briefly covered years ago) can now be played to completion, and with greatly reduced risk of falling through a crack in the world.

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