Broken Glass Studios announces the first public beta release of The Dark Mod, a medieval steampunk stealth game toolkit inspired by the Thief series.

The Dark Mod team consists of a multinational group of professional and amateur game developers, who started work on the project in September of 2004. Their goal was to create a mapping toolkit inspired by Looking Glass Studios' classic stealth game Thief: The Dark Project and its sequel Thief II: The Metal Age. Built upon id Software's Doom 3 (id Tech 4) engine, The Dark Mod completely transforms the sci-fi / horror shooter into a medieval, steampunk, stealth experience. Players must have Doom 3 installed to run The Dark Mod.

With the release of The Dark Mod: Beta 1.00, Broken Glass Studios is providing the modding community with a sophisticated editing suite. All the assets and resources necessary to build playable missions are included, plus a level editor, DarkRadiant, which has been custom designed for the needs of Dark Mod mapping.

In addition to the editing tools, the release also includes four playable missions to help demonstrate the full potential of the mapping kit.

To see screenshots, or to download The Dark Mod once it becomes available at 18:00 CEST, please visit http://www.thedarkmod.com/