20th Anniversary - Total Conversion Titans feature - Cry of Fear

In June 2002 ModDB began, and every year since we've celebrated the best mods in an annual player voted event. To mark our 20th Anniversary, we've decided to take a walk down memory lane, and look back on all of the mods that finished in the top 5, across five separate categories:

This article is all about the Total Conversion! These mods change the game more than any other - transforming their parent titles across story and even genre boundaries into entirely new experiences. It's one thing to build on a foundation, but these mods built their own foundation from the ground up. They're one of the best demonstrations of the raw power of modding!

Featuring in MOTY 2005 and 2010 respectively, these two mods prove Bethesda-IP total conversions have been pushing the envelope for years. They're not a dying breed either, with plenty more mods released and in development since like Enderal, Star Wars: Galactic Legacy, and SKYBLIVION.

Valve titles are an evergreen source of ambitious mod projects, with total conversions in particular having a special showing. Featuring in MOTY 2006, 2007 2008, 2009, and 2011 (for both The Stanley Parable and Underhell), Valve IP mods have long held a home on ModDB and continue to do so with ambitious creations like F-stop | Project Capture, Entropy : Zero 2, and Operation: Black Mesa. As is the case with some of the most successful mods out there, The Stanley Parable has since gone commercial with a recent re-release and Underhell transitioned to Unreal Engine 4 for a commercial follow-up.

Star Wars, as a cornerstone of gaming culture for decades, is unsurprisingly a focus for many modders, transforming their favourite titles into new adventures in the galaxy far far away. However, Empire at War has also become something of a platform of its own for space-and-ground-based RTS gameplay, with Star Trek, Stargate, Babylon 5, and other franchises featuring. Other total conversions like FOC Alliance - Star Trek TOS and Covenant at War also made their mark on the EAW modding scene. These three mods took the stage in MOTY 2007, 2009, and 2011.

Mount & Blade: Warband is a seminal third-person medieval strategy game, and its modding history reflects its monumental size. Taking positions in 2011, 2013, and 2018, these three mods are just a slice of the potential for this game - with total conversions that bring another take on fantasy and history like A World of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) or Brytenwalda, and original fantasy fiction like Perisno.

Though spread across four different games, these mods - taking 2013, 2016 (for both Hearts of Iron IV: The Great War and Medieval Kingdoms Total War (Attila Version) and 2021 for MOTY - demonstrate the sheer spread of quality strategy mods available on-site and the variety of games modders continue to bend to their will. The disproportionate consistency of strategy games having modding support is a strong reason for this, and in the modern industry, these titles are still some of the most reliably modded available.

This and the next mod in the category are sub-sections unto themselves, with Cry of Fear happily (or moodily, more fittingly!) taking Mod of the Year 2012. An instant classic that could well have released as a standalone commercial product, Cry of Fear's legacy lives on with its own small but dedicated modding scene that builds upon Team Psyskallar's foundation.

This mod might be nameless, but all classic Deus Ex fans know it well as the internet culture-focused total conversion mod that brings equal parts satire and serious commentary to the table. Placing back in 2009, it's not the oldest trophy-taker on this list but neither is it the youngest, giving it a comfortable middle ground and remaining an example of a total conversion that truly has come into its own.