Playback.dem

Site Updates

• We now list servers for Tribes, Postal 2, Soldier of Fortune, Serious Sam: TFE and Serious Sam: TSE.
• Fixed various minor URL mishaps, typos and more across the site.
• Xmas theme! Happy holidays to all the PC gamers in the whole wide world!

We hope you’re all safe, spending time with family this time of the year. Some of us wanted to travel, but due to current world events that isn’t possible. In dire times like that, seeking refuge in hobbies like these is a godsent.

Thanks for being here with us!

Are you ready for the year 2026? Less than a few weeks remain.

Mod News

Before we get into some sad news, we need to highlight some cool stuff we saw last month. As always, the PC Game Modding community is busy working its butt off on all sorts of things. In terms of entertainment, we may have actually spent most of our time once again playing various levels or addons created by the community.

UZDOOM Release

After the ugly breakup of GZDOOM community back in October, we saw the first preview release of UZDOOM in November.

And the first change that was supposedly done? Turned texture filtering off by default. It also now appears to be the left-most engine highlighted on ZDoom.org its download page.

Isowolf

Isowolf by LoGeKyl is an isometric Wolfenstein 3D but in Godot. Well worth the look if you want to shoot sprites from a different perspective.

Reprocessing - Map Evolution

The Half-Life mod Reprocessing has had an update on their ModDB page for the mod showing the evolution of some of the levels. In this mod you’re a Vietnam-vet turned Black Mesa security guard. Let’s hope it delivers on the action it seems to imply. As a gun-slinging war-vet in the all-too-familar Black Mesa Research Facility it will have to pull some hard punches to stand out from the scene. The level design has us intrigued nonetheless, so we’re watching it closely.

TTT Classic v0.8.1

There’s a new release of TTT Classic by gsscrazydog available! Download it or read what’s new in the mod. That’s not the only thing though! You can win $400 by winning their map design contest! So show what you’re made of!

Malice Refined Beta v3.0

We had been invited to test this mod privately before this release. Malice Refined is a bug-fix and overhaul of Malice for Quake by ThunderGoose. It’s been really exciting to see someone pour this much love into this classic addon. However, there’s also extra features for level designers to invite more interesting maps. A huge focus is also placed on the AI and bringing it up to a higher standard. Sound fun? Check out Malice Refined on ModDB.

Quake II: Call of the Void v2.0

The hyper-cool mashup of Quake and Quake II titled Call of the Void had a big patch released for the v1.0 release. You can grab it on ModDB and read the news-post announcing the changes on-site as well.

Storm over Thyrion Preview

We’re still drooling with excitement, as we’ve seen the work by Mathuzzz on Storm of Thyrion, a HeXen II modification with large level ambitions.

You can follow the development of Storm over Thyrion over on ModDB.

SiN gets 11 NEW MAPS

Thanks to Steve Nyland we got a full set of levels inspired by past adventures for SiN and its expansion!

They are playable in both singleplayer and deathmatch/coop modes. Here’s the map listing:

drumlins2025a - Nottingham Knolls drumlins2025b - The Big Hill drumlins2025c - Fire Pond & Pump House drumlins2025d - Concession Stand drumlins2025e - Pro Shop & Back Nine drumlins2025f - King of the Hill drumlins2025g - The Long Fareway drumlins2025h - Fifth Hole (the Bike Map) drumlins2025i - The Little Hollow drumlins2025j - Cart Paths and Snack Bar drumlins2025k - The Driving Range

You can find the download to the map pack on ModDB.

Dawn of the Tiberium Age v14.5

The standalone Red Alert mod DTA has gotten a new release as well that you can grab right here. There’s bound to be some Christmas themed surprises waiting for you within.

Half-Life: Insecure

While we wait for one security guard mod, another one releases - this one is titled Half-Life: Insecure and was produced by MPS. The level design appears to be of high quality, we’ll have to give it a full playthrough and let you know what we think at a later date!

Black Mesa: Blue Shift Remake Chapters 1-5

The team over at the HECU Collective released Chapters 1-5 for their envisioning of Half-Life: Blue Shift using the example set by Black Mesa.

Shadows of the People

The neat Source Engine powered Puzzle game INFRA got a fan-made expansion in the works by Proope1237 titled Shadows of the People, you can see the past 6-months worth of progress on it in their latest news-post over on ModDB!

Team Fortress Classic - Oral History with ChuckBronson

Want to submerge yourself in Internet lore, TFC custom level stories and gaming history? Enjoy retro gaming reviews and commentary by the one and only ChuckBronson, who’s an actual TFC Legend and is also a friend of the site.

Viewer discretion is advised, as it delves into all sorts of layers with brutal honesty. If you can handle strong language you’re in for an entertaining delivery.

Game News

Rebecca Heineman Passed

Legendary developer Rebecca “Burger Becky” Heineman passed away. Anyone who followed her fediverse account received this final message posted on her behalf:

The last toast from the legend herself:

Valhalla really really reeked of beer, but Jennell seems happy

The other angels are tired of me saying “fight for the other users” while throwing my halo around

I leave it up to you to go to lindken.com and look up Jennell Jacques, now look at her job description, goddess of technology… and fuck cancer, fuck it in the ass

• Becky

Her contributions are numerous, with some of her most famous being the Mac ports of id Software classics, and even worked on a port of Half-Life that ultimately never came out. Becky was also a software archivist, sharing the source code and other raw goods of the 3DO DOOM port she worked on.

Here’s a classic interview she did with Matt Barton, along with a more recent one with The Retro Collective.

GTA VI Delayed Again

It is true, it has happened yet again. We’ve reported on this twice before I believe.

It’s true that games of this nature take a very long time to make now. It’s one of the reasons Dan Houser also left working on these. Coupled with the economic pressures of our current global environment, as well as being the first game without either Sam, Dan’s or Lazlo’s involvement, and the whole thing about employees not being in a good spot at Rockstar right now is quite a mix of a dangerous cocktail.

Still want to work in the AAA industry? A question to those aspiring game developers.

We’re rooting for the developers in the trenches.

Outer Worlds 2 Released

Our friends at Obsidian Entertainment have released The Outer Worlds 2. Cheers!

Hi-Fi Rush KRAFTON Transfer

After Tango Gameworks was purchased/saved by KRAFTON in August of 2024 (during the great Microsoft/Xbox/Bethesda Studio closure wave), it has taken a while to get all the services and support information transferred. Luckily it appears to have gone down smoothly on the 14th of November 2025. No change on the players part was/is required.

Read more about the Updated Support Information for Hi-Fi Rush on KRAFTON their support site.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Released

With headlines like “Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7’s Awful AI Use Is A Watershed Moment” from Forbes, this release proved controversial with just about anyone.

OpenAI customers were generating Studio Ghibli inspired artwork all Summer and so did someone at one of Activision’s (now Microsoft) companies it seems.

Was the game any good? Flaunt your opinions in the Chat.

Tech News

Valve Wins The Internet

In recent months, we’ve made it abundently clear that Tech news have been pretty depressing lately. And yet, there was a bright light and the very beginning of November.

Valve announcing exactly what kind of hardware it’s expecting to ship early next year.

On the Internet, everybody immediately rejoiced. Is it because are these the fastest machines in the world? No. Is it because these run the most games in the world? No. It’s because these are products that people actually want to buy.

Nobody wants to buy that low-margin laptop, built to only last the extent of its warranty period, with bloatware and adware operating systems.

Facebook Kills External Like Buttons

The company known as Meta, formely Facebook, was killing off their tracking-widgets because nobody wants to use their declining service.

At one point in time, Facebook actually provided a service to people. It was always at the expense of something of course - but it was nonetheless useful at one point in time.

They too thought they were very clever, and chased the idea of bumping engagement metrics - from which the wrong conclusions were derived. Often it’s project managers also showing the higher ups deceiving metrics - it doesn’t matter. The wrong conclusions were drawn internally and it’s now announced that the platform is in decline.

Good riddance.

Over n out

We’re busy filling everybody their socks with Christmas goodies.

See you around over the coming weeks!