A highly anticipated mod for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered was canceled shortly before launch because the developers received a cease and desist letter from Activision.
The mod team revealed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) the day before launch that it was shutting down the whole endeavor.
“Today, our team members received a Cease & Desist order on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the H2M-Mod project. We are complying with this order and shutting down all operations immediately and permanently,” the post reads.
Today, our team members received a Cease & Desist order on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the H2M-Mod project. We are complying with this order and shutting down all operations immediately and permanently.
— H2 Multiplayer Mod (@H2Multiplayer) August 15, 2024
Digital Trends reached out to Activision for comment and will update this story when we get a response.
The ambitious H2 Multiplayer Mod (H2M) was set to remake the multiplayer maps from the original Modern Warfare 2 inside the PC version of Modern Warfare Remastered. Beyond just recreating the maps, it would also offer upgraded graphics, brand new maps, remastered weapons, and a new progression system. Activision released Modern Warfare 2 Remastered in 2020,and it only included the single-player campaign, not the multiplayer, and the mod developers were hoping to fill that gap.
“If Activision won’t do what the fans want, we the community will,” the developers wrote on X in 2023,
PC Gamer found that ahead of the mod’s original launch, Modern Warfare Remastered was spiking in terms of sales and concurrent players on Steam. At one point, the eight-year-old game was No. 3 on the top sellers list, behind Counter-Strike 2 and the Steam Deck. That recent success for Activision made it sting a bit harder for one of the devs.
“Genuinely heartbroken. Over a year of work from a dedicated group of people working for FREE to relive a fan favorite Call of Duty. Not a penny earned despite generating THOUSANDS OF SALES FOR ACTIVISON, all to get shut down AFTER PEOPLE SPENT THEIR MONEY,” a developer who goes by SoaR Alastor wrote on X.
This isn’t the first time Activision has shut down Call of Duty mods or community efforts. In 2023, the publisher sent out cease and desists to the makers behind two fan clients for older series titles: SM2 and X Labs.
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