Many developers discover their talents by just messing around with a game they love. Sometimes they find a way to bend the game’s engine to create a new mechanic, make new and interesting levels, correct gameplay issues, and so on. Eventually, some of those mods can become independent releases, be bought out by the developers of the original title, or even inspire new games.

Some gaming genres were completely born from just a single mod. Video game historians will collect titles of mods that became so immensely influential that they outgrow themselves and gave birth to some of the medium’s most amazing projects.

10 Black Mesa

Half-Life fans have been waiting for a third game for the longest time. Many people do not understand the passion and love that many have for this game since they missed it when it was considered relevant. Although half-life is dated, it is still a good game. With that in made, a group of modders decided to push forward a way to play Half-Life with updated graphics.

The project attracted so much attention that it became an independent release. To make it even better, Black Mesa got Valve’s approval and can even be bought via Steam.

9 Star Wars: Galactic Warfare

Back when this mod came out, there was not much news regarding Star Wars games. Star Wars: Galactic Warfare kept the gameplay feel from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but it completely changed the appearance of the maps, weapons, and characters. Sound effects were also changed to fit the weapons being used.

This sort of mod showed that there was a demand for these types of games. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that pushed for the release of a game like Star Wars: Battlefront.

8 Counter-Strike

This is another game that only older gamers know about its origin. Counter-Strike was at first a Half-Life mod. Originally designed by Jess Cliffe and Minh “Gooseman” Le, the mod’s success was so great that many people who used to play Counter-Strike did not even realize it was a mod.

Eventually, Valve acquired the Intellectual Property rights for the mod of its own game. After that, Valve decided to turn Counter-Strike into a full product. The game is still popular today and one of the most influential first-person shooters to have ever existed.

7 Garry’s Mod

Half-Life gave burn to a number of amazing mods, and quite a few of them became stand-alone games. Garry’s mod was one of them, even though it kept “mod” on its name. Made as a sandbox experience, this title was originally just a bunch of tools to mess around. There was no real objective in it, so gamers would use it to make their own fun.

This concept evolved into a fully fleshed-out version of the same idea. Still a sandbox-style title with no set objective, but with much more to play around with.

6 Team Fortress Classic

This Quake mod is so influential that it almost single-handedly created a new First Person Shooter sub-genre known today as the Hero Shooter. Team Fortress was a Capture the Flag mode that became so popular that the rights were acquired by Valve, leading to the creation of Team Fortress 2.

Team Fortress 2 is one of the greatest treasures owned by Valve. It is fair to say that its structures and gameplay were highly influential to the birth of famous Hero Shooter games like Overwatch.

5 PlayerUnknown’s Battle Royale Mods

PlayerUnknown was Brendan Greene’s alias. He created one of the most influential Battle Royale mods among the few that were made. It was an Arma 2 mod based on another mod, DayZ. The battle-royale mod removed the zombies and added weapons throughout the map for players to look for. All these ideas are very similar to and were most likely inspired by the manga Battle Royale.

Brendan Greene updated the mod later to Arma 3 as well. He eventually became a creative developer for Bluehole, finally being able to turn his vision into PlayerUnkown’s Battleground. This title would go on to become one of the 15 best-selling PlayStation games of all time.

4 Defense of the Ancients

Here is another mod that created a whole genre. Defense of the Ancients was not the first MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) mod made, but it was for sure the most famous one. Originally a Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients became so popular that it rivaled the game that originated it.

This game alone is responsible for the existence of games like League of Legends, DOTA 2, Smite, and all the other MOBA games that were created after the original DOTA. The world can also thank this mod for the eternal discussion pitting DOTA 2 against League of Legends.

3 The Dark Mod

It started as a modification to Doom 3 back in 2009, and then it became its own thing. The Dark Mod was meant to be just a recreation of the original Thief’s gameplay. Eventually, it evolved into some form of spiritual successor to it since it is an independent game.

The best thing about The Dark Mod now is that it is a completely free first-person stealth game that pays respects to and functions as an homage to Thief, but it also manages to be its own thing at the same time.

2 Street Fighter 2: Rainbow Edition

Street Fighter 2 is to this date one of the most popular fighting games of all time. It pushed the franchise into an unreachable level of popularity. Even though the series is on its fifth numbered title, and it had many other spin-offs, Street Fighter 2 still sells and is frequently played. However, the game might have been forgotten if it was not for a mod.

Street Fighter 2: Rainbow edition was a faster version of the original game. It also had many new moves. Although the mod was unbalanced and quite broken, people were interested in playing it just because it was new, different, and faster. It ended up inspiring the newer and faster versions of Street Fighter 2 that had new characters and moves. This is especially nice because Capcom usually ties some lore facts to the characters’ moves.

1 Killing Floor

Originally a Quake mod, Killing Floor was just a game about killing zombies and handling the progressively harder waves of zombies. It is the predecessor of zombie modes and mods out there for other games. This mod was so influential that it inspired first-person survival shooters that exist to this date. Chances are, it is thanks to this mod that games like Left 4 Dead came to fruition.

This mod eventually became a fully released game also called Killing Floor. Eventually, the gaming world also got the great Killing Floor 2.

NEXT: No Man’s Sky: 10 Best Mods