For example Project Cartographer describes itself as the following
Project Cartographer is a modification for Halo 2 PC (Halo 2 for Windows Vista) that restores online play (Microsoft abandoned the LIVE servers) and adds additional features that are not present in the base game.
Before the release of Master Chief Collection it was my go-to for playing online.
Similarly H1-Mod exists for CoD: Modern Warfare Remastered.
I’d be interested to hear which ones you’ve tried and how active the community is. They don’t need to be currently active or a replacement for a game’s existing multiplayer services. It could be something like Zandronum which allows you to play the classic Doom or NVMP-X which allows you to play Fallout New Vegas with friends.
Most of these services don’t contain DRM so you can use Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle, or any other version of the game and because they are community run you don’t have to worry about servers going down as time goes on and can potentially host your own games.
I also like to make a special mention of X Link Kai which allows you to play system link games remotely. If you are curious I’d check out ConsoleMods.org for setup instructions and their website for a list of supported games.
There’s plenty of other similar services out there depending on what console you are using such as Insignia for the original Xbox.
I’d love to see these communities grow.
Titanfall 2, with the Northstar client.
GTA San Andreas with SAMP, although that was yearrrssss ago now. I miss a couple of those servers…
Are they inactive right now? I’m not sure if they went the way of re3 (a reverse engineered version of GTA 3 designed to fix bugs, port the game to several platforms, and expand modding capabilities) and were shut down under pressure from Rockstar.
I think so - last update was released in 2015
I was looking forward to trying re3 but rockstar’s lawyers decided to be a killjoy. There was another mod that joins the GTA3, VC and SA maps together and uses a modified version of SAMP for multiplayer (gta underground IIRC), I believe they got spooked by Rockstar too and pulled the plug
Freelancer is 2003 Microsoft abandonware which still has an online mod community. Most prominent is probably the Discovery mod, which hosts a 24/7 RP server.
GamesRanger is a pretty dope RTS client for a ton of RTS games. I use it for Battle for Middle Earth 2 to this day.
Not sure if it’s still active, but Just Cause 2 Multiplayer added an insanely chaotic Multiplayer mode to an originally entirely singleplayer game
