Activision To End Call of Duty Fan Game SM2

Call of Duty is the most important shooter franchise in gaming, it is arguably the most important game series of all. From Activision’s point of view, this must be protected and the makers of a fan game called SM2 have now felt the effects of this.

SM2 is (was) a game that is made a game out of several CoD parts. SM2 allowed weapons, maps, and abilities from different CoD titles to be used within one game using a modified Call of Duty client, in the form of a free game. The Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 engine was originally used here, but the developers recently switched to that of Modern Warfare Remastered.

Activision vs fan game

The project also had many supporters, as can be seen, and heard from numerous disappointed social media comments and YouTube videos. Because Activision sent a cease-and-desist letter to the makers before the planned release date. The SM2 makers want to comply with this, as they announced on Twitter: “We will comply with this order and will finally stop operating. We thank everyone for their support over the past two years.”

According to PCGamesN, SM2 was intended to be playable only if you legally own a copy of Modern Warfare 2. So SM2 would essentially have been a modification. Earlier this year, it was announced that it was switching to Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remaster for technical reasons.

Activision has not yet officially commented on this and one should not expect that the publisher will do so in the future. However, those responsible for SM2 should not be too surprised: even if the project was not commercial, it created competition for Call of Duty by freely using CoD. Of course, fans see it differently and one can certainly ask the question of whether such projects do not tend to strengthen the bond with a game series – but legally the matter is certainly clear.