The Nameless Mod
released on Mar 14, 2009
A mod for Deus Ex
The Nameless Mod is a third-party total conversion modification released for Deus Ex in 2009 by Off Topic Productions. It was in development for 7 years, during which it was highly anticipated.
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This review contains spoilers
What an experience.
While a great deal of the plot is, indeed, references to 10+ year old in-jokes formed on an internet message board that has been dead for quite a while now, it's easy to relate if you've ever been a part of an internet community, especially one that's no longer around.
There is also something to be said, I think, about the narrative twist revealed near the last few levels - GameSpy being hostile invaders planning to take over fansites and turn them into profit-driven websites. While GameSpy may be long dead by now, the twist is still relevant for today just the same as it was back in the early to mid 2000's (Fanon/Wikia as an example off the top of my head.)
As far as the gameplay goes, it's great. Deus Ex with some updates to the formula. I had a ton of fun. I went WC and ended up banning Scara once I realized that was an option.
Play it, especially if you liked Deus Ex! It was recently updated with new maps by some of the original team.
While a great deal of the plot is, indeed, references to 10+ year old in-jokes formed on an internet message board that has been dead for quite a while now, it's easy to relate if you've ever been a part of an internet community, especially one that's no longer around.
There is also something to be said, I think, about the narrative twist revealed near the last few levels - GameSpy being hostile invaders planning to take over fansites and turn them into profit-driven websites. While GameSpy may be long dead by now, the twist is still relevant for today just the same as it was back in the early to mid 2000's (Fanon/Wikia as an example off the top of my head.)
As far as the gameplay goes, it's great. Deus Ex with some updates to the formula. I had a ton of fun. I went WC and ended up banning Scara once I realized that was an option.
Play it, especially if you liked Deus Ex! It was recently updated with new maps by some of the original team.
This is a hot candidate for “most woefully underappreciated game in existence”. The Nameless Mod is a fan-made total conversion mod for Deus Ex from 2009, but really more of a full-fledged sequel, and, dare I say, easily a better one than all of the (still pretty good) commercial attempts.
It’s a rich, deep and cleverly crafted cyberpunk super spy simulator that not only rivals the original, but even delivers on some of its broken promises, like an honest-to-god branching storyline. Whereas Deus Ex had this feature cut and in turn tells pretty much the same basic tale every time, The Nameless Mod is much more flexible when it comes to forging your own personal narrative.
It took me until my latest playthrough to fully realize this, when I decided to playfully mess around in the game world, trying to pull at its seams a little. Instead of longingly staring at the best sword in the game without being able to afford it, I just hacked the security system, stole the sword and killed the shopkeeper with it. And instead of following the main objective of investigating a kidnapping, I gleefully told my friends and colleagues that I don’t give a shit and that they all suck, and went to work for the big evil corporation with the very clearly insane CEO instead. Whom I betrayed as well in the end, naturally.
So why have so many people in its supposed target audience of oldschool Deus Ex fans given up on The Nameless Mod after the first hour, or didn’t even bother to play? Surprisingly, this is the rare case when we actually have a pretty well-documented answer: It’s the story. You can see it all over internet comment sections: Just learning the premise is enough to seemingly turn off loads of potential players. Now what’s this controversial story premise?
Man, is it hard to explain. Which may be the first problem already. Basically, The Nameless Mod asks the superbly strange question “What if the Deus Ex online fan culture of the mid-2000s was a Deus Ex game itself?” The stuck-in-perpetual-night-time rainy near-future city the game takes place in is supposed to be a Matrix/Tron/Metaverse-like representation of the PlanetDeusEx forums, which actually existed in the 2000s, when this mod was made. Almost all of the characters you meet in the game are based on real users and moderators of the site. Some even voice-acted themselves. And the further you get in the story, the more you realize that it’s actually about the GameSpy network consolidating and commercializing internet video game fan communities, told in the form of a Deus Ex-like cyberpunk conspiracy thriller.
Now, mid-2000s internet forum culture and humor is a bit, as the kids say, “cringe” from today’s perspective, and The Nameless Mod wears its fan culture roots proudly on its sleeves instead of trying to imitate a commercial product, with all the freedoms and idiosyncrasies that brings. There is a side mission where you are tasked to get rid of a gang of “n00bz”, a fan fiction shop with characters pretentiously overanalyzing Deus Ex’s background lore, and two opposing cults, one worshipping llamas, the other worshipping goats. Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between worldbuilding and community in-jokes, and the last thing people want is to be reminded of the time when they made their first account somewhere and posted a “pirates vs. ninjas” poll, I get that. But honestly, I think the fact that The Nameless Mod depicts a once real online community, obsessed with the game it itself is based on, is kind of genius. And I hope the more distance we gain to this time period, the more we can appreciate this game as a unique postmodern artifact, a time capsule from a lost culture.
One last tip: If you’ve tried the mod in the past and dismissed it, give it another look. During the last few years, the game has been receiving regular updates again. The lead level designer has returned to the project with ten additional years of professional experience under is belt, completely remaking all of the maps, and it’s a night-and-day difference. A version of the mod also was integrated into the otherwise rather dreadful Deus Ex: Revision as a Steam Workshop release, which makes downloading and playing it easier and more convenient than ever before.
It’s a rich, deep and cleverly crafted cyberpunk super spy simulator that not only rivals the original, but even delivers on some of its broken promises, like an honest-to-god branching storyline. Whereas Deus Ex had this feature cut and in turn tells pretty much the same basic tale every time, The Nameless Mod is much more flexible when it comes to forging your own personal narrative.
It took me until my latest playthrough to fully realize this, when I decided to playfully mess around in the game world, trying to pull at its seams a little. Instead of longingly staring at the best sword in the game without being able to afford it, I just hacked the security system, stole the sword and killed the shopkeeper with it. And instead of following the main objective of investigating a kidnapping, I gleefully told my friends and colleagues that I don’t give a shit and that they all suck, and went to work for the big evil corporation with the very clearly insane CEO instead. Whom I betrayed as well in the end, naturally.
So why have so many people in its supposed target audience of oldschool Deus Ex fans given up on The Nameless Mod after the first hour, or didn’t even bother to play? Surprisingly, this is the rare case when we actually have a pretty well-documented answer: It’s the story. You can see it all over internet comment sections: Just learning the premise is enough to seemingly turn off loads of potential players. Now what’s this controversial story premise?
Man, is it hard to explain. Which may be the first problem already. Basically, The Nameless Mod asks the superbly strange question “What if the Deus Ex online fan culture of the mid-2000s was a Deus Ex game itself?” The stuck-in-perpetual-night-time rainy near-future city the game takes place in is supposed to be a Matrix/Tron/Metaverse-like representation of the PlanetDeusEx forums, which actually existed in the 2000s, when this mod was made. Almost all of the characters you meet in the game are based on real users and moderators of the site. Some even voice-acted themselves. And the further you get in the story, the more you realize that it’s actually about the GameSpy network consolidating and commercializing internet video game fan communities, told in the form of a Deus Ex-like cyberpunk conspiracy thriller.
Now, mid-2000s internet forum culture and humor is a bit, as the kids say, “cringe” from today’s perspective, and The Nameless Mod wears its fan culture roots proudly on its sleeves instead of trying to imitate a commercial product, with all the freedoms and idiosyncrasies that brings. There is a side mission where you are tasked to get rid of a gang of “n00bz”, a fan fiction shop with characters pretentiously overanalyzing Deus Ex’s background lore, and two opposing cults, one worshipping llamas, the other worshipping goats. Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between worldbuilding and community in-jokes, and the last thing people want is to be reminded of the time when they made their first account somewhere and posted a “pirates vs. ninjas” poll, I get that. But honestly, I think the fact that The Nameless Mod depicts a once real online community, obsessed with the game it itself is based on, is kind of genius. And I hope the more distance we gain to this time period, the more we can appreciate this game as a unique postmodern artifact, a time capsule from a lost culture.
One last tip: If you’ve tried the mod in the past and dismissed it, give it another look. During the last few years, the game has been receiving regular updates again. The lead level designer has returned to the project with ten additional years of professional experience under is belt, completely remaking all of the maps, and it’s a night-and-day difference. A version of the mod also was integrated into the otherwise rather dreadful Deus Ex: Revision as a Steam Workshop release, which makes downloading and playing it easier and more convenient than ever before.
imagining myself trying to explain this game's plot to a zoomer and smiling serenely
I still can't believe this actually exist.
The Nameless Mod is a mod for Deus Ex that started as a one map made as an internet forum in-joke, and after seven years in development it has turned into a huge total conversion with a ton of content. The scope of this project is massive, and all of it was made by a bunch of people in their free time.
Despite the in-jokey nature of the project, the end result is genuinely good, at some points arguably better than the base game. The developers understood what made the first Deus Ex so appealing and it shows.
It's such an anomaly to me because the appeal was really niche to begin with, and with a a scope this big you'd expect the game to be either cancelled or badly made, but they actually delivered something great that could be sold in stores (if you ignore the fact it's using an online forum from the 00's as a setting, not something commercially viable but you get my point lol), and almost nobody knows about it.
It's a must play if you're a Deus Ex fan, and I believe it deserves more attention than it has.
The Nameless Mod is a mod for Deus Ex that started as a one map made as an internet forum in-joke, and after seven years in development it has turned into a huge total conversion with a ton of content. The scope of this project is massive, and all of it was made by a bunch of people in their free time.
Despite the in-jokey nature of the project, the end result is genuinely good, at some points arguably better than the base game. The developers understood what made the first Deus Ex so appealing and it shows.
It's such an anomaly to me because the appeal was really niche to begin with, and with a a scope this big you'd expect the game to be either cancelled or badly made, but they actually delivered something great that could be sold in stores (if you ignore the fact it's using an online forum from the 00's as a setting, not something commercially viable but you get my point lol), and almost nobody knows about it.
It's a must play if you're a Deus Ex fan, and I believe it deserves more attention than it has.