It was perhaps the most popular and most successful gaming mod contests ever run and now we have a sequel. Epic Games recently announced the launch of the new Make Something Unreal mod contest using the PC version of their sci-fi shooter Unreal Tournament 3. The original Make Something Unreal contest yielded a ton of imaginative mods for Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 and some actually turned into full fledged commercial games.

The overall winner of the first contest, Tripwire Interactive's WWII shooter Red Orchestra, morphed into a stand alone game that has gotten a small but very loyal audience. It was recently announced that a runner-up in the last contest, Blue Omega's wield western shooter Damnation, would also be released as a stand alone game via Codemasters. Epic Games is teaming up with sponsor Intel to give people who win the various phases and categories over $1 million in cash and prizes. The grand prize, which will be awarded in fall 2009, will be a full Unreal Engine 3 license to the winning mod team. Of course we will be following the contest and its winners in the months ahead.