Video game preservation can often lead to strange directions. While some gamers believe that it’s enough to preserve the source code, and others think it’s keeping the games playable, even if that means illicitly distributing ROMs, is what matters. And then there are online games.
A modding group named H2 was working on a very special multiplayer mod for Call of Duty. In particular, they wanted to take Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Remastered, a very well regarded 2016 remake of the 2007 shooter from Infinity Ward, and rebuilt the multiplayer from the 2009 game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.
As reported by PCGamesN, H2 was suddenly sent a cease and desist by Activision just as they were about to launch their H2 Multiplayer Mod, to use on the Steam version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Remastered. H2 shared this message on Twitter:
“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.”
That may sound like a harsh course of action to take, especially towards people who were clearly fans of the franchise. But one can also see Activision’s position on this, and it may actually be Infinity Ward’s position. Both the online servers for Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Remastered and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 are still live, across most of the platforms that they were launched on. They are definitely still live on Steam, the platform that the H2 Multiplayer Mod was going to be used on.
What H2 wants is to get the remastered experience for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. But based on their actions, it’s not what Activision, and possibly Infinity Ward, want to do. We don’t know why they didn’t move forward with a Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Remastered, which would have made this experience available. Maybe it just didn’t make sense business wise, or they had too many other Call of Duty games already lined up.
It’s also possible that they don’t want to block this experience away from gamers per se. Instead, the issue is about modding their games, and we know there can be legal and business reasons to discourage that. As a lawyer who worked on the Pokemon IP stated in an interview, no one really likes to sue their own fans.
But the fans clearly see that they are missing an experience, that they could have had all those years ago, but didn’t get. This is why FaZe clan, a well-known Call of Duty esports group, shared this message on Twitter to Activision:
“We are begging that you guys reconsider this decision @Activision. To be clear we have zero involvement in this project outside of being massive fans.
We were excited to produce an ILLCAMS on the H2 mod. Their team made it a requirement to purchase the original MW2 Remastered published by YOU GUYS. An excellent asset to onboard users/ players to your product.
This is harmless fun and community building. Something we feel Call of Duty desperately needs. Please do the right thing and let the kids play their game.”
The tweet was signed by FaZe Banks, one of the owners and founders of FaZe Clan.
This whole situation raises some strangely existential questions about video games, at least on a community level. Can this mod, that’s trying to create something that doesn’t exist in the past, but could have, be considered some form of video game preservation? Should we consider this a collective anemoia, the term John Koenig coined to define a nostalgia for an event or experience that a person, or in this case, the Call of Duty fanbase, never experienced?
If there are legal or business reasons that don’t allow Activision to sanction the H2 Multiplayer Mod, the least that they can do is make a proper Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Remastered themselves. They are best equipped to address that longing that their fans have, to experience something that they never got.
