You can go to Steam, pay $20 for a 14 year old game, and have no notice whatsoever that you probably shouldn't boot up multiplayer unless you scroll deep enough into the reviews. And that the game can be sold with known and serious vulnerabilities without any notice. When I first started using IW4x, my memory is that they were pretty clear about requiring you to hook into your existing game files, but my understanding is that now they basically just straight up offer torrents for the game files, offer paid access to clients for newer games, etc.īut it's still really frustrating that this basically means you can't play the game anymore. To be clear, Xlabs really slipped in the direction of piracy and the decision here isn't surprising in the least. The existing RCE for MW2 multiplayer (and a bunch of other old Call of Duty games) is why I know about these fanservers, as people generally recommend not trying out the official multiplayer to avoid the risk. The devs behind that project tweeted that they're "currently OK" alongside a Spongebob GIF suggesting worry that they may be next on the chopping block.Īctivision Blizzard has yet to offer a comment in response to a request from Ars Technica. Steam player counts for other classic Call of Duty games are even lower these days.Īctivision's latest wave of cease-and-desist demands has yet to hit Plutonium, a competing set of Call of Duty custom clients that enjoys thousands of active players across multiple games and servers. That's just 2 percent of the peak measured player count the game hit in late 2012. The multiplayer version of Modern Warfare 2 has averaged 227 players on Steam over the last 30 days, according to SteamCharts. You can't just take away the ability for your fan base to play old games when it's not harming you." "If Activision Blizzard wants to continue to send out these cease and desists, they at least need to handle their security problems because it is egregious. "Basically, it's just not safe," Modern Warzone said. Playing these older games on PC also risks exposing your IP address and letting hackers insert malicious files onto your machine, he said. Hackers on those official servers can kick other players from the game and reset their in-game rank and unlocked content, as Modern Warzone said he found out personally during a recent "throwback day" event in the player community. "They are the reason that some of the old Call of Duty games still have active player bases," popular streamer Modern Warzone said of the recently shuttered X Labs clients, adding the "security is nonexistent" on the official servers for these older titles. The project's YouTube account is still up, though, and it shows multiple examples of the kind of new gameplay modes the mod would have enabled. A Discord used for project discussion has also been shut down, leading to fake Discord servers claiming to take up the project's mantle. The SM2 project website now simply redirects to that tweet, but the site is still available on the Internet Archive. We are complying with this order and shutting down all operations permanently." The SM2 Twitter account reported that "a team member received a Cease & Desist letter on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the SM2 project. Those efforts stopped last week, though, before the mod could even release its first version. Since then, the modding group has been working on updating that seminal 2009 release with new weapons, in-game perks, a redesigned UI, new streak and progression systems, and even a recent move to a more modern game engine. The first victim of Activision's recent efforts was SM2, a major Modern Warfare 2 modding project whose development started over two years ago. The move cuts off access to the many gameplay and quality-of-life improvements brought by these clients and stops what fans say is the only safe way to play these older games without the threat of damaging hacking by opponents. Prerelease video of Modern Warfare 2's SM2 mod, which has ceased development following an Activision cease-and-desist request.Īctivision has sent cease-and-desist letters to two makers of popular fan clients for legacy Call of Duty titles in recent weeks.
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