Playback.dem

Let’s talk about October 2025, shall we? The highlights and (still) developing stories.

Site Updates

We worked tirelessly last month to bring you web-based ports of Overturn and Zombie Panic! and have patched them since then with cool new effects and improvements. We’ve also added compression, so games on the Arcade should load a lot faster.

Another backend addition is a new master-server. It’s for a game that doesn’t have a page yet. It already has an uplink with 333networks, so there’s a riddle for you.

We’ve also put up our South Park server again. We’ll try to keep an eye on it, but it appears the dedicated server only lasts about a month before shitting bricks. The PC port was probably never even tested for that length to begin with. Just let us know when you need it back up, mmkay? In case we forget.

Last but not least, we had added a redesigned Games page with icons and the full title up-front that month. We’re also experimenting with other view modes and stuff since going data-oriented. Stay tuned.

Mod News

These people, they truly make games. Don’t they?

Go-Mod Reborn v3.0 released

We were invited to beta test the latest version of Go-Mod Reborn, and it has now been released in full.

This is a continuation of the modification Go-Mod for Half-Life, and works on the 25th Anniversary Update of the game on Steam. It’s got a ton of customization options only made possible by using clever tricks to work around things like sound limits and the like. You’re also able to create monster-spawners for some custom survival gameplay using a huge array of NPCs.

One of our staff members worked on the original mod from 2009-2011 and approves of this continuation. Check v3.0 out now!

ArmA: Cold War Assault Mission Pack (SP/COOP)

Here’s a pack of missions for the rebranded Operation Flashpoint! These do not require mods or other addons to play and should work with the vanilla game files. The best part is they’re offered as both Single and Cooperative versions.

They are split up into two categories of missions: 19 story-oriented and 24 gameplay-oriented missions coming up to a total of 43 missions.

There’s a focus on infantry based battles, and the scripting will even provide replacements for team members, health regen for the whole squad, as well as a pre-mission setup where you can equip your gear. There’s also a time/weather system you can influence for variety.

Grab the ArmA Mission Pack by borkurus on ModDB to get your fix.

Futurama Meets Hit & Run

Remember the iconic game Simpsons Hit & Run by Radical Entertainment? Well the modders at Slurm Team thought of a way to make this great game even better by delivering the Futurama total conversion we’ve always dreamt about. You can download a demo of Futurama: Hit & Run at the Mod Bakery. Can we have our free Slurm now?

Halo: Flawless Cowboy Edition

This mod dressing up as a re-release of Halo: Custom Edition is developed by SolidStateSimulation and is there to showcase the wealth of custom content made for the original PC port. It restores Xbox content, and adds quality of life improvements, such as quick-saving and improved audio on top of an array of Halo campaigns. It’s a big package at 25 GB, but may be the one-stop shop for people who want to experience more Halo in a way that’s more authentic to the original than some of the other offerings.

The news post about the release contains some videos showcasing what’s to offer!

Team Fortress 2 Classic Can’t Be Called Team Fortress 2 Classic

The anticipated project Team Fortress 2 Classic is facing issues due to its naming that will have to be resolved for it to launch on Steam. We’ll inform you in the future about the chosen name.

OSP2-BE-1.00-beta released!

OSP2 - Black Edition is a mod by diwoc for Quake III Arena that tries to restore Orange Smoothie Productions Q3 (with source code available on GitHub). It’s appearing to near its v1.0 release, so check out the Beta before that goes live!

Modding In The Big City - No Trust Society

Another ambitious mod for Half-Life 2 has hit the scene, the team at Canal Rat Interactive is building a game inspired by the classic Internet Flash Game Stick-RPG, promising similar mechanics and NPCs that will sell you goods. We’ll keep an eye on this one!

Real DOOM3 5.2 Update

The mod compilation by AgentLoginovGames for Doom 3 is seeing Real DOOM3 v5.2 released over on ModDB. If you need a fresh coat of paint or want to experience the game with more monster variety, you’ll want to give this a try.

Orbital Assault Gets 24/7 Server

The Battlefront 2 Mod Orbital Assault has gotten a 24/7 dedicated server on which you’re all invited to try out the mod together.

TTT Classic

Mod developer gsscrazydog created a demake of Trouble in Terrorist Town but on Half-Life that is now in public beta. This might breathe some new life into underrated maps from the custom map pool!

Goethe’s Last Laugh

A striking surprise can be found by looking at Goethe’s Last Laugh on ModDB by GRÆMAMËTH. We’re thrilled to tell you it has a demo available on itch.io. It requires Mapbase and Source SDK 2013 Base Singleplayer.

Cold Ice Remastered Media

Quite a bit of animated media was released by solidi for Cold Ice Remastered. We actually share some history with Cold Ice somewhat, perhaps in many more ways people don’t realize yet. It’s a big cacophany of fun - with ice.

Flamethrower

The Temple

Dual Hivehands

Timescale, like Max Payne

Boot_Camp reskin: Snow_Camp

Nightmares for Blood

We’re eagerly excited for updates on Nightmares for Blood by Bloodskar. Which sets out to make a more urban oriented level pack for Monolith Productions’ 1997 game Blood.

You can already play the demo, or play the earlier episode by Bloodskar named Willard. Make sure you have a newer source-port installed.

In Mute Witness Stand - Halloween Update

This Half-Life mod by eyeling has been featured on this site before a few times and we’re happy to highlight it again!

The news update is showcasing a lot of new content for this singleplayer/cooperative modification. The new shooting range map is even based off a real-life counterpart.

Game News

Serious Sam 20

Let’s get Serious for a second, as Serious Sam 2 hits the big 2-0. We here at Frag-Net are still in shock over HL2’s turning of twenty, so Serious Sam 2 joining the club is another reminder: We be old.

But we didn’t bring this up to just state the obvious, for Croteam has not forgotten their roots and have given Sam a nice makeover for the special occasion. What’s included? According to the Steam post:

• 14 Trading Cards
• 10 Emoticons
• 6 Profile Backgrounds
• 3 Animated Profile Backgrounds
• 1 Mini Profile Background
• 3 Avatar Frames (including 2 animated)
• 3 Animated Avatars

But that’s not all! This update also features huge slew of fixes and enhancements to the game. Seriously, go check it out on the Steam Community!

Mesa Drivers Get DLSS Support!

Announced on our very own ActivityPub instance, DLSS has been added to Mesa, meaning Linux/BSD gamers can now see what all the “fuzz” is about. Haha get it?

Ken Silverman Interview

Famous voxel conisseur and tech-lord of Duke Nukem 3D known as Ken Silverman gave an interview with YouTube channel, TechJesse. Write that down!

DukeShock

This is going to be a no-brainer for many for many of you: What if the Duke met System Shock? You might just get DukeShock over at ModDB, created by Olipro. It’s recommended to play this on an eduke-based client or something with increased limits.

Rebecca Heineman AKA Burger Becky Is Diagnosed With Cancer

In really sad news, Rebecca Heineman has been diagnosed with cancer. She has put up a GoFundMe for those who want to chip in and help with her the costly medical bills. For those not in the US, unlike almost every other country in the world, the US does not have a tax-funded healthcare system, and instead lets insurance companies torment its citizens in the name of “freedom”. Even with this in mind, people have thankfully already donated an amazing $100,000+ to help her out.

There was also a piece written this month about her deceased partner, Jennell Jaquays, who also played an important role in gaming history.

We hope Burger Becky is able to make a recovery and live debt-free.

Gregg Mayles Leaves RARE

After a 36-year long career, Gregg Mayles has retired from Rare. The Sea of Thieves, Donkey Kong Country and Banjo Kazooie director had this to say:

Today was my last day at @RareLtd. Thanks to everyone who played and enjoyed any of the games I helped create while I was there. Also thanks to all the people that worked on the games alongside me. It seemed fitting that I should say farewell with one final rhyme! - Gregg Mayles

We’re hoping it was on his own terms given the state of things at Xbox.

We wish him well on his future endeavours.

GZDOOM Splits Off Into UZDOOM

The DOOM community has put its collective feet down and forked GZDOOM into a new source port called UZDOOM. This feud had actually been brewing for years, but Graf Zahl pushing untested Neural Network generated code upstream seemed to be the last straw.

You can read what the developers themselves said along with other figures in the community.

Let’s hope they can all get along again someday.

Union Fights EA Acquisition

People working there are fighting the current situation of Electronic Arts attempting to go private.

EA is not a struggling company. With annual revenues reaching $7.5 billion and $1 billion in profit each year, EA is one of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world. EA’s success has been entirely driven by tens of thousands of EA workers whose creativity, skill, and innovation made EA worth buying in the first place. Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardized as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed.

We wish them the best of luck in this climate.

Microsoft Demands 30% Profit Margins from XBOX Divison

Bloomberg reported that Microsoft will now demand a neck-breaking profit margin from the struggling XBox division.

It must be awful for Phil Spencer right now with his hands being tied. Microsoft is playing expensive games elsewhere, and Xbox seems to be just in the way right now. Management may have also lost faith and is putting it on a path for failure. You’ll read the post-mortem within a decade.

Rockstar Accused of Union Busting

Here’s Rockstar in the news once more showing that they ain’t got that hot image anymore because the word is they don’t respect their workers. Foreshadowing next month’s playback much?

Anti-Cheat Added To Multiplayer Game, Blames “Linux”

Once again some game added anti-cheat to their game and decided to lock out Linux users. Guess what, it still has hackers - and the only meaningful difference now is that Linux gamers don’t get to play.

Much like Rockstar did with Grand Theft Auto V, who famously killed multiplayer for Linux users last year for “similar reasons”.

It’s a simple act of posteuring. Throwing a part of your audience under the bus that you do not align with your target demographic, just because you make poor technical choices on a protocol layer that no anti-cheat could possibly fix? At least you’re trying, uh-huh.

If only you’d let people do what they want - allowing them to choose who to play with or let players be democratically involved, or self governing. But you don’t want that, because it undermines your business model. It sounds more like your business model isn’t compatible with reality. Get real.

RIP D’Angelo

In more tragic news, famous neo soul and RnB singer D’Angelo died last month. His contributions to music are many, but those in the gaming community will remember Unshaken from Red Dead Redemption 2. He was only 51 years young, rest in peace.

Tech News

We’ve been trying to remain positive, but this year alone makes us want to throw up.
Here’s some ongoings you may want to be aware of.

…and no, we’re not going to be talking about NVIDIA. That’d mean having to talk about Palantir.
No thanks.

Verify This! *flips off*

Age-verification laws are already proving to be a massive failure, not to say “I told you so” for the 100th time, but there was a horrendous hack last month of Discord’s systems. Everyone who was forced to give their ID to Discord has been a victim and had their personal information leaking out. Some will have to deal with identity fraud as a result of this.

Companies love to gobble up your data, but they never feel responsible for keeping it safe because they are not held accountable. Unless that changes, you should oppose these types of measures fundamentally because this very sensitive information (photo ID, passports) you’ll have to give up are not safely kept.

May I also remind you that most data you give to companies isn’t safe by default due to the third-party doctrine that exists in the United States. Please assume your Discord DM screen is as private as your social feed. This is not a joking matter. Dead serious.

October Slopfest 2025

Here’s some bad PR at the hopes of bumping stock prices, look at what Electronic Arts said about how much they’re “empowering” artists by mandating they make use of certain technology. Oh no, the Unknown Worlds killers are in the news again too - for the same attitude as EA. You all get it by now, it’s quite pitiful.

Broadcast Your Lies

YouTube is allowing those who knowingly spread misinformation and abused the platform a “Second Chance”. Let’s see how this rehabilitation works out, considering that grifters have a habit of… well… grifting. Watch out for weird content creators.

Windows 10 Is Dead

Support for the last version of Microsoft Windows that people tolerated is more or less over. You can pay them a few bucks to get support for you going for another year, but applications are already looking to cut it off so it practically doesn’t matter.

Windows 11 - which wasn’t meant to exist - will replace it, and there’s already drama surrounding guides that will help you to try and ‘fix’ it from doing naughty things. As you can tell, we live in the dumb timeline.

Unfortunately, the uninvested majority who will still put up with it are not going to change their habits, unless something catastrophic happens. To Microsoft, that is. It’s a tragedy, really. A tale as old as time. Oh well!

The Server is Down, ARE YOU!?

So, a good chunk of the web went offline, including major websites and services. And you’ll never guess why…

“it keeps turning out to be a mistake to put one third of the internet in one building” - foone

Help decentralize the web, and you too can help prevent this headache.

Over n out

What a month. Will Xbox survive? Who’s next? What mods will finally release? What will the next month bring? Stay tuned, for we have gifts in store for Christmas, as always.

Show mods some love in the comments! See you when it’s snowy.

your frag-net.com staff

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