12 Total-Conversion Mods To Make Your Old Games Feel Brand New
Total-conversion mods are one of the coolest things about the PC gaming community. Creative and ambitious amateur game developers look at games we love and see things they want to improve, stories they want to tell in that world, and files they want to dig through for missing pieces. Some all-timer games began life as total-conversion mods; Stanley Parable was a Half-Life conversion mod at first, and so was Counter-Strike. Dota was previously called Defense of the Ancients and began life as a (very, very popular) mod for Warcraft 3. DayZ, the multiplayer zombie-survival game, was a mod for Arma III, the complex soldier simulator. All of those games are massive hits in their own rights. Total-conversion mods can introduce an entirely new world to explore with its own story, bring fan-favorite stories and properties into an existing game’s framework, or act as a sequel to a game that won’t get one anytime soon.
Below, we run through some of the best total-conversion mods for a variety of games, including Skyrim, Doom II, FTL, Fallout, and others. For more great ways to spend your time on a PC, check out our picks for the best PC games and best free PC games, as well as the best mods for The Sims 4, Elden Ring, and Stardew Valley.
Skyrim – Enderal: Forgotten Stories
Created By: SureAIWhere to Download: ModDB
Enderal is an all-timer when it comes to ambitious total-conversion mods. This Skyrim mod takes you to an entirely new world and features a campaign, voice acted by pros with English and German voice tracks, that the developers say should take 30-120 hours to complete. There’s a new skill system, new lore, and just about everything else you’d expect from a new game–except it’s free. And don’t let the development team’s name–SureAI–put you off. The team has been making huge game mods since at least 2010 (more on that below), and Enderal came out in 2019, back when AI meant “stuff NPCs do in video games” instead of its more controversial modern definition.
For more, check out our list of the best Skyrim mods.
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Skyrim – Falskaar
Created By: AlexanderJVelickyWhere to Download: NexusMods
Falskaar isn’t as ambitious as Enderal in sheer scale but is equally daring in its own way, as it was built by one person whose end goal was reportedly to land a job at Skyrim developer Bethesda–which they did. This is a bit more DLC-sized, but it takes you to a brand-new place to explore and presents an interesting storyline that dives into Nordic politics with, again, an almost fully voiced storyline.
Oblivion – Nehrim
Created By: SureAIWhere to Download: ModDB
Before SureAI–the team behind Skyrim’s Enderal total-conversion mod–made that project, it first made Oblivion Nehrim. Released in 2010, this mod takes you to the island of Nehrim, using the Oblivion engine. This game focuses less on a sprawling campaign, though there is one, instead rewarding you for exploration. As one person on Reddit said, Nehrim is “more level design than dialogue,” with some truly huge dungeons to explore.
Fallout 4 – Fallout London
Created By: TeamFOLONWhere to Download: GOG
One of the things fans want the most from the Fallout series is to explore the world outside of the United States. Bethesda game director Todd Howard has said repeatedly that they’re committed to exploring the series’ unique version of Americana. If you want to venture outside the United States, you’ll have to look elsewhere. The newly released Atomfall might scratch this itch as a standalone game, but Fallout fans will want to look to Fallout London, which came out in the latter half of 2024.
Fallout London is a massive total-conversion mod for Fallout 4 that takes the story across the Atlantic. This mod rivals the size of a proper sequel and can take 25 or more hours to complete, with players reporting that it can take many more if you want to explore everything. It has huge, game-altering decisions that can result in big story divergences, with a fully voice-acted story. With its setting, much of the Americana falls away, offering its own version of an post-apocalyptic, atomic-age world. Players have described it as being more than a little crash-y, so you’ll want to save often, because they also say that it’s more than worth wading through that stuff.
For more, check out our list of the best Fallout 4 mods.
Doom II – Ashes 2063
Created By: Ashes Dev GroupWhere to Download: ModDB
Ashes 2063 uses the open-source Doom engines GZDoom and Freedoom2 to bring us a Doom total-conversion mod that calls to mind the first-person shooters that came in Doom’s wake, like Duke Nukem and Blood, with huge open spaces and fast-paced gameplay and, according to the developer, some inspiration from Fallout and Stalker. There are quite a few Doom total-conversion mods out there, and this one stands out as an especially fresh experience for such an old game.
Doom 2 – Wolfenstein: Blade of Glory
Created By: Blade of AgonyWhere to Download: ModDB
Doom and Doom II were massive games, but Wolfenstein 3D walked so that the Doom franchise could run. Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony puts you back in the boots of B.J. Blazkowicz, in a brand-new Wolfenstein story inspired by WWII shooters of the ’90s and ’00s. It features 30 levels across three chapters, complete with interactive NPCs and proper quest items. It features over a dozen new weapons. Setting the supernatural ones aside–no spoilers–there are multiple shotguns, machine pistols, and rifles, all based on actual firearms from World War II. You’ll also be able to find a grenade launcher, flame thrower, a minigun, and a rocket launcher. There are also nine enemy types, each with three or four variants compared to just even in Wolfenstein 3D. In other words, there’s plenty to do here. Like most other modern Doom mods, Ashes 2063 included, this game runs on the open-source GZDoom engine.
FTL – Multiverse
Created By: The Multiverse TeamWhere to Download: ModDB
FTL is a hard game to put down, but even hardcore fans of the game will eventually run out of stuff to do. Good news, spacefarers: FTL Multiverse is here to massively expand the game. This mod features a new story set decades after the original game’s tale, in which the Federation and Rebellion have taken the war to other dimensions thanks to the Multiverse Drive. The mod features “nearly 200 new playable ships, over 500 new enemy vessels, over 200 new weapons and drones, and over 30 brand-new sectors to explore” according to the developer.
Total War – Many, Many Total-Conversion Mods
Created By: VariousWhere to Download: ModDB
There are simply too many great Total War mods to mention them all here. One fan-favorite is Third Age, a mod that brings Total War to the lands of Middle-earth and features a campaign focused on the War of the Ring. If you want more Lord of the Rings action, there’s also Divide and Conquer, which brings its own spin on the Third Age of Middle-earth, and is considered by many fans to be the superior Lord of the Rings mod. Total War Westeros will let you participate in the greatest game, the Game of Thrones. The Elder Scrolls Total War features a variety of factions, and you can pit the Stormcloaks of Skyrim against the ruling Houses of Morrowind to see who would win. If you’re more interested in historical conflicts, there’s The Great War, which brings all the brutality of the first World War to Total War, while The American Revolution focuses on the United States’ war for freedom from the monarchy of England with all the depth you’d expect.
Stellaris – Star Trek: New Civilizations
Created By: WalshicusWhere to Download: Steam
Stellaris is already a sprawling game–reviews for it on Steam are frequently from players with well over 1,000 hours on record. There’s plenty to do here. But if you’re looking to refresh the game, or maybe you’re a long-time Trekkie looking to put their own spin on the Star Trek series, this mod is for you. Star Trek: New Civilizations adds hundreds of new events, anomalies, and crisis chains, as well as new institutions you can use to interact with your empire. You’ll get tons of new visuals to enjoy, too, with 860 new ships, 160 species, and a bunch of new megastructures. On top of all of that, this mod streamlines things like the technology tree and economy systems to make for a smoother experience. If you’re a Star Trek fan, this one is worth checking out.
Crusader Kings 2 – A Game of Thrones
Created By: CK2:AGOT Development TeamWhere to Download: ModDB
The Crusader Kings series is all about grand strategy–political intrigue, continuing your empire, and winning wars rather than battles. You’re a monarch interacting with other monarchs, like it’s some kind of game: a game of thrones. Like the base game, Crusader Kings 2, this total-conversion mod isn’t about plowing through a hand-crafted campaign. Instead, you’ll be playing with and against characters from the books, in a variety of time periods in Westeros history, and creating what-if scenarios to explore. What if Joffrey wasn’t the worst? What if that last season of the show had a satisfying story? You get to decide what happens when you play the game of thrones. This total-conversion mod is complete for Crusader Kings 2 and in ongoing development for Crusader Kings 3.
Freelancer – Crossfire
Created By: SWAT DevelopmentWhere to Download: ModDB
The 2003 game Freelancer was a space-sim game from Chris Roberts, creator of the Wing Commander series and of Star Citizen. Reviews were mixed at the time of release, but the game developed a loyal following that hoped and asked for a sequel that would never come, as the studio, Digital Anvil, was shuttered before such a thing could coalesce. And so fans took it upon themselves to make their own with Freelancer: Crossfire. This mod brings in new graphics and lighting, hundreds of new ships and systems, and of course its own storyline campaign. The mod also improves enemy AI, makes the universe destructible, and adds some of the dynamic world and economy features that Roberts promised in early previews (tell me if you’ve heard the one where Roberts promises a really ambitious space game before).
Deus Ex – Nihilum
Created By: FastGamerrWhere to Download: ModDB
Deus Ex Nihilum is a mod for the original Deus Ex game released in 2000. Nihilum is set in an alternate universe from the original game, in 2049. After a terrorist attack on Shenzhen, China, UNATCO sends out their first nano-augmented agent, Mad Ingram, to investigate and prevent a repeat of the disaster. This mod features around 10 hours of gameplay with four hours of new dialogue, 80 new music tracks, and a few new weapons, and more. Deus Ex was a landmark entry for the immersive-sim genre, so it’s no surprise that fans of original would want to go back and mine that world for more fun gameplay.