Q: What is The Dark Mod?

A: The Dark Mod is a total conversion mod for Doom 3, which recreates the moody stealth experience reminiscent of the ‘Thief’ games from Looking Glass Studios. When you play The Dark Mod, you feel like you’re playing a gothic stealth game…there’s nothing left that’s recognizable from Doom 3.

Q: So is it a game?

A: Depends on how you look at it, I guess. It’s primarily a toolset, allowing fans and team-members to create their own stealth missions in a gothic steampunk environment. But there are already fifty missions for download, including some small campaigns, so it certainly feels like a game. The only difference is that you have to choose which missions to install and play.

Q: What do I need in order to play?

A: Other than TDM itself, you must have a copy of Doom 3. TDM works with the steam version of Doom 3 if you can’t find one locally. You must also have the most recent D3 patch. There is a full installation guide on our wiki.

Q: Now that the D3 source is released, are you making a standalone version?

We’d love to have a version of TDM that doesn’t require D3. However, TDM uses a large number of D3 assets, including high quality sounds, particle effects, models and animations. All those assets would need to be replaced before we could release a standalone version, and that requires a lot of (fairly thankless) work that won’t be finished any time soon.

Q: Is this the same thing as Thief?

A: The gameplay is very similar, yes. However, The Dark Mod takes place in a different setting. We make no references to any Thief trademarks or Eidos’ intellectual property–there is no Garrett, no Keepers, no Mechanists, etc. However, since both Thief and The Dark Mod are based on a steampunk version of our own history, there are plenty of similarities.

Q: Is there an instruction manual?

A: We have an extensive Gameplay Guide on our wiki. The Mod also comes with a built-in Training Mission that guides you through many of the skills you need to play the game.

Q: How long did it take to make?

A: The idea of making something thief-like out of Doom 3 got tossed around in the fall of 2004, and by October we had a team of interested people. The original thread is still on the TTLG forums…it’s amusing now to read some of our early ideas. It took five years of work to finally get the mod (with two demos along the way) ready for release. The Dark Mod 1.00 was officially released in October 2009, but is still being updated regularly. As I write this, testing is beginning on version 1.07.

Q: What if I want to make a mission?

A: Our team has also created a specialized editor–Dark Radiant–to make creating fan missions much, much easier. Visit the main Dark Radiant page here: http://darkradiant.sourceforge.net/

Q: Can I put Thief vocals in my mission??

Q: If I make a fan mission, can I use Garrett, Hammerites, etc?

A: We can’t exactly stop you from using Thief files or Eidos’ intellectual property, but it’s copyright infringement. We would obviously prefer that those using our work do not break any copyright laws. We certainly will not host or support any missions that use Thief files or make references to Edios’ IP.

Q: Ok, so I made a mission. Now what??

A: If you have completed a TDM Fan Mission, please start a thread in our TDM Fan Mission forum and let us know. We can help you host the mission for download.

Q: What if I have something to contribute?

A: We welcome contributions of models, textures, sound effects, and other assets, and would be happy to add any quality donations to our regular TDM updates. Please visit our “I Want to Help” forum. We’re especially interested in hearing from people who can do quality vocal recordings, and from animators with Maya experience.