On launch day, Activision shuts down hyped mod that sent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered soaring up Steam sales charts

Activision has shut down an ambitious and widely anticipated mod for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered on the very same day as its planned release.

"Today, our team members received a Cease & Desist order on behalf of Activision Publishing," the team behind free-to-play mod H2M tweeted last night. "We are complying with this order and shutting down all operations immediately and permanently."

The H2M-Mod project essentially served as a Modern Warfare 2 (2009) revival mod that would have added all of the original game's maps, modes, weapons, killstreaks, and more to Modern Warfare Remastered, alongside some new stuff (attachments, camos, maps built using single-player environments, and an updated progression system.) The mod was supposed to be free, with the only requirement being ownership of Modern Warfare Remastered.

An obviously huge undertaking such as the H2M mod was always sure to attract tons of attention ahead of its planned August 16 release date, but this time, online chatter translated to tangible sales. Modern Warfare Remastered shot to the very top of Steam's sales charts a few days ago, only behind perennial giant Counter-Strike 2, and the seven-year-old shooter was pulling in higher concurrent player counts than it had since launch - all presumably fuelled by hype for the now-in-limbo mod.

Needless to say, Activision's cease and desist order hasn't gone down well with the community, especially since the mod had very publicly been in development for years and was only pulled after it had already generated hype (and presumably money) for the publisher - and before players had even gotten a chance to play it.

Recent Steam user reviews for Modern Warfare Remastered are now 93% 'Overhwhelmingly Negative', while its all-time rating has fallen to 'Mixed' based on over 10,000 reviews, with most negative reviews complaining that they dished out money for the remaster solely for the upcoming mod that'll no longer see the light of day.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 isn’t even out yet, but modders are already taking advantage of a leaked build to give everyone Max Payne super-dive powers.