The Darkest Hour team and Tripwire Interactive are happy to bring you the latest installment for their mod for Red Orchestra. The latest release of Darkest Hour: Europe 44-45 brings new features, 2 new vehicles and 6 new maps, to update the most popular Red Orchestra mod.

The most exciting new feature is one that the Red Orchestra fans have been asking for, for quite a while: mantling. The Darkest Hour team is proud to bring you a full implementation of mantling, working in all the DH maps. For all those RO fans who have yet to try Darkest Hour - this could be the time!

The new vehicles are the American M36 Jackson "Slugger" and the German Panzer III Ausf. N. For these to roam around on, there are also 6 new maps from Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge:

• Dog Green Beech on D-Day (a condensed re-release of the old Beta map)
• Freyneux and LaMormenil
• Hurtgenwald (back by popular demand)
• La Chapelle
• La Monderie
• Noville

On top of that, there is a HUGE change-list, with pages of other new and updated features and bug-fixes. As always, this Darkest Hour update is completely free to anyone who owns a copy of Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45.

DH will auto-update via Steam if you already have it installed - or you can install it for free from Steam - http://store.steampowered.com/app/1280/.

For the full details of all the additions, updates, changes and bug-fixes, head for the Darkest Hour forums on the website: http://www.darkesthourgame.com/. It has been a long time coming - but it has been well worth the wait!

Discuss on the forums ->

The Royal Armoured Corps Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset has been the single most important source of reference for the Tripwire team over the years we have been creating tank models for our games. Following on from the dramatic rebuild of the museum over the last 2-3 years, the Tank Museum are also working on bringing a virtual museum online, via their website (http://www.tankmuseum.org). This will eventually feature all of the vehicles now on show in the new hall and will allow visitors to the website (and the museum) to view the vehicles from every angle, including some of the interiors.

To do this, of course, they need the models. We can provide them with a good start from the models from Ostfront. We are looking to the RO mod teams, the community and to modelers in general to fill the gaps. The original Ostfront models are obviously a great start, but they will be looking to use much higher poly counts as they develop the virtual museum - these don't have to be drivable in a  game!

So, if anyone has suitable models they are willing to donate to the museum, it would be greatly appreciated. If some of them don’t exist, we hope that some of you would like to create them! The Tank Museum will provide all the reference material you might need, from the actual vehicles themselves, as well as from plans in the museum’s archives. In return for donating models, the museum can obviously credit the relevant modelers and is offering free entrance to the museum for you as a little thank you. The museum is a registered charity in the UK, which may even allow some of you to claim any donations as deductions off your local tax authorities, which never hurts!

If everyone interested would like to register that interest and discuss, please head for our forums (CLICK HERE) and we can get organized! The full list of required vehicle models (CLICK HERE), formats and everything else will be made available as we go, including updates as to which ones are done and which are still needed.

Our old friends over at Voodoo Extreme are running their annual Readers' Choice awards - Killing Floor is up for awards in the categories for "Best PC Game Expansion" and for "Best PC Shooter". For good measure, Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad is up for "Most Anticipated Game for 2010". So if you like us, like Killing Floor, like all our FREE expansions for Killing Floor and/or like the look of Heroes of Stalingrad - GO VOTE FOR US! Click on the Voodoo Extreme logo above to jump to the voting.

Have a good holiday!

Discuss on the forums ->

Big update for Mare Nostrum released - available on Stema at http://store.steampowered.com/app/1230/. The mod now features:

• 26 all-new Steam achievements.
• 14 new infantry weapons, such as the ever-distinctive Thompson submachine gun, Bren machine gun, Beretta 1934 pistol, and the SMLE rifle.
• Full Italian and Polish localizations.
• Over 20 new crewable vehicles including the Italian Carro Armato M13/40 and Semovente 75/18, countered with multiple Valentine tank variants, plus the Stuart I, Matilda II and Vickers Mk VIB.
• 12 new maps, including:
• Crete - Fallschirmjäger units dropping into the midst of Australian defenders in this classic battle.
• Ancona Approach - The Fallschirmjäger are back in action, this time defending against the Polish advance in eastern Italy.
• Gazala Line - Desert tank warfare does not get bigger than this. Start your engines and prepare for total war.
• Road To Tunis - The war in North Africa is almost over, but the British must first push the Axis tanks from one last mountain valley to reach Tunis.
• Tobruk Central - The Australian defenders have been under siege for longer than they can remember, how much longer will they be able to hold out?
• Bardia - The Italian garrison is surrounded, but they will not give us this cliff top town and its valuable port without a struggle.

So whether it is the North African campaign, roaming the deserts in the armoured vehicle of your choice or the bitter fighting in Crete and mainland Italy, new and old players alike will get a chance to see why RO remains a classic. Now with the opportunity to re-play those battles RO-style, courtesy of Mare Nostrum! For more information on the mod (and to see the trailer) head to the Steam page at http://store.steampowered.com/app/1230/.