Modders never cease to amaze. This time, a coder with the alias BMD remade Dota 2 as a third-person shooter.

The popular online multiplayer game typically pits teams of players against one another in a fast-paced, tactical battle. Characters rack up kills of enemy minions and players which earn money to be spent on items and upgrades. Those mechanics are the core of just about every MOBA experience.

BMD has taken a radically different approach however, dropping the items, minions, and tactics of the base game, and instead aiming for a fantasy third-person shooter with cartoony visuals. The result is pretty impressive as you can see in the above video. The mod is quick, and pretty brutal, despite being in its very early stages.

In a Reddit post, BMD explained that he had to change almost everything about the base game to allow things like jumping, strafing, and rapid turning--techniques not normally possible in Dota 2. He also had to "hack-in" camera controls, and rebuild the game's control system from the ground up.

BMD said that he'll be releasing the code for everyone to use soon, but he's trying to work out a few more kinks first. Given that Source 2, the engine used, is completely free and Valve's liberal approach to modding culture, this looks like a variant that might be around for quite some time.

Also of note is the fact that MOBA as a game genre has its roots in mods. The first Dota was itself a mod of Warcraft III. To see a mod of a standard game based on a mod of a full game, while confusing, is really cool.