8 Mods Better Than The Actual Game

6. Third Age: Total War

Third Age is a mind-blowing total conversion mod for Medieval II: Total War's Kingdoms expansion which transforms the original game map of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East into an accurate representation of Middle-earth from The Lord of the Rings.

The insanely detailed map includes 114 locations from Tolkien's source material, including iconic must-see spots like Minas Tirith, Isengard, and of course Mordor.

The campaign is meanwhile drawn straight from Middle-earth lore and allows players to control one of 14 (!) factions, while pretty much all the expected creatures and characters are lovingly represented.

And love is really the operative word here - in every fiber of its being Third Age feels like it was made with all the commitment of a genuine retail product. 

The scope, polish, and overall effort level is so unbelievably high that the base game frankly seems dead ordinary by comparison.

Hell, it gets even better if you install the more recent Divide and Conquer sub-mod, which builds upon Third Act with more of basically everything.