I love games, but what I love even more is a game that runs on a mod-friendly engine. The reason? This extends gameplay for a game well beyond its original campaign material and the multiplayer offerings. With the plethora of mod-making tools out on the Internet and the rabid fan-modding communities out there, more than enough mods are out on the Internet to make your games from three or more years ago play with a totally different experience.

While I’ve never seen a mod to be the reason to get a copy of a game (it’d actually have to be a pretty terrible title built on a fantastically flexible engine), some of these become great reasons to keep those copies around. Best of all, these mods are always of high quality and are always FREE.

Free high quality content: what more could you ask for?

Here I am to guide you to the best of the best. Today’s moddable title of choice: Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War and its stand-alone expansion: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

Featured for Dawn of War: Dark Crusade are a number of incredible mods that expand the unit roster and even the number of races playable.

Underneath is a trailer for the mod Firestorm over Kronus. While I haven’t played this myself, there is a massive amount of content here (filesize estimated at 600+MB– not a download to finish over lunch unless you’re packing cable), adding personality and options to every faction. Note how the space marines have new shiny bits added to their armor and other things. While it doesn’t add new races, it completely changes the unit balance, adds new units, new textures, new models, everything you need to change the way the game plays.

Boy, does this trailer look epic.

Dawn of Warhammer 40K: Firestorm over Kronus Mod for Dawn of War Videos & Audio – Mod DB

Now onto a mod I’m intimately familiar with: Inquisition Daemonhunt.

This mod adds an entire playable race, complete with personal tech tree, structures, research, VOICE ACTING, you name it, they’ve added it. A fantastic art style and realization of one of the most advanced factions within the technologically backwards Imperium of 40K lore makes this a fantastic add-on to put on your copy of Dark Crusade.