A highly anticipated mod for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered was unfortunately canceled shortly before launch due to a cease and desist letter from Activision.
The mod team announced on X (formerly Twitter) the day before launch that they were discontinuing the project entirely.
“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) aimed to recreate the multiplayer maps from the original Modern Warfare 2 within the PC version of Modern Warfare Remastered. In addition to map recreations, it planned to provide upgraded graphics, new maps, remastered weapons, and a fresh progression system. Activision only released Modern Warfare 2 Remastered with the single-player campaign in 2020, leaving out 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 discovered that leading up to the mod’s original launch, Modern Warfare Remastered saw a surge in sales and concurrent players on Steam. At one point, the eight-year-old game ranked No. 3 on the top sellers list, trailing only Counter-Strike 2 and the Steam Deck. This recent success for Activision made the shutdown even more disappointing for one of the developers.
“Genuinely heartbroken. Over a year of work from a dedicated group of people working for FREE to recreate a beloved Call of Duty title. Not a penny earned despite generating THOUSANDS OF SALES FOR ACTIVISION, all to get shut down AFTER PEOPLE SPENT THEIR MONEY,” a developer known as SoaR Alastor wrote on X.
Activision has a history of shutting down Call of Duty mods and community initiatives. In 2023, the publisher issued cease and desist orders to the creators of two fan clients for older series titles: SM2 and X Labs.
