One man has spent 15 years making a hyper-realistic Ghost Recon mod and you can play it now

After almost one and a half decades of relentless fanatic one-man development, the mod’s creator Apex reports to be working on the finishing details for a full 1.0 version, scheduled for release “when it’s ready”.

Heroes Unleashed offers the redux of a wide variety of content and ideas from the myriad of mods classic Ghost Recon inspired over the years.  The huge project aims to incorporate those elements of the game’s rich modding history into an ultimate collection of the best game content, meticulously complemented by significant refinements and additions, all with a distinct emphasis on hardcore tactical realism.

Since its humble beginnings and first public release in 2008, the popular mod has matured immensely.  Containing over 125,000 files, Heroes Unleashed now weighs in at about 20 GB fully installed (the download package is ultra-compressed to under 7 GB), and next to the mod’s rejuvenating audio-visual makeover for the classic original, its impressive catalog of hardcore realism enhancements, and a host of other novel and innovative features, the latest update to this monumental expansion pack delivers more than 200 maps and missions, over 400 weapons and equipment items, 100+ military and civilian vehicles, in excess of 1,000 character models, and upwards of 100 single and multiplayer game types.

Hundreds of thousands of mod downloads are an impressive testament to the lasting appeal of Red Storm’s Ghost Recon from 2001, the legendary “Thinking Man’s Shooter” generally credited by industry experts with defining and refining the tactical realism FPS genre, and widely considered to still be one of the best tactical shooters in existence today.