Name of Responsibility: Fashionable Warfare Remastered, the 2016 redo of Name of Responsibility 4, made a shock climb up the top-sellers chart of Steam earlier this week. Being on sale helped, however the true motive was the looming launch of the H2M mod, a large, free fan-made mission that aimed to recreate traditional Fashionable Warfare 2 multiplayer within the newer remaster. However the entire thing has been shot down on the final minute: At some point earlier than the mod was set to go dwell, the builders say Activision’s attorneys got here knocking.
“Right this moment, our workforce members obtained a Stop & Desist order on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the H2M-Mod mission,” the workforce mentioned on Twitter. “We’re complying with this order and shutting down all operations instantly and completely.”
There’s been no additional communication from the makers of H2M, however the web site at h2m-mod.dev has additionally been taken offline.
Evidently, an terrible lot of Name of Responsibility followers will not be pleased with this final result. For one factor, there’s an actual need for Fashionable Warfare 2 (2009) multiplayer amongst the followers: As employees author and Fashionable Warguy Morgan Park mentioned when he wrote in regards to the H2M mod earlier this week, “Fashionable Warfare 2 continues to be thought-about peak CoD for a lot of teenagers of the late aughts.” Regardless of that, the official remastered Fashionable Warfare 2 launched by Activision in 2020 doesn’t embody any multiplayer: It is a campaign-only endeavor.
And never solely did H2M embody remasters of all of the Fashionable Warfare 2 multiplayer maps, it additionally featured marketing campaign ranges reworked for multiplayer fight, and each Name of Responsibility 4 map as nicely—54 maps in complete. That is a giant deal, and it makes the C&D a giant loss.
However what’s additionally chapping lots of asses is the truth that Activision waited till the final attainable minute earlier than dropping the C&D on the mission—and, extra to the purpose, till the top of the Steam sale. As we famous, an terrible lot of individuals rushed out to purchase Fashionable Warfare Remastered for half-price solely to play the H2M mod, and there is a sense amongst some followers that Activision deliberately let issues slide to make the most of the massive gross sales bump. That is led lots of H2M followers on Twitter, some with giant followings themselves, to induce everybody to you should definitely refund the sport whereas they’ll.
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“Lots of the unique Infinity Ward workforce consisted of devs who was once modders,” former Name of Responsibility inventive strategist Robert Bowling mentioned on Twitter in response to the mod shutdown. “The unique Name of Responsibility PC video games launched mod instruments and server recordsdata to empower neighborhood creations to increase on the unique imaginative and prescient. Construct methods to assist your UGC neighborhood not strangle it.”
Others had a extra succinct tackle the entire thing.
As unhappy as it’s,it isn’t a wholly stunning final result. This is not the primary time Activision has dropped a cease-and-desist order on a Name of Responsibility mod mission: Within the span of only one week in 2023, it shut down the SM² Name of Responsibility shopper mod mission that had been within the works for 2 years, and the older IW4X mod made by X Labs.