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Five days after a massive Call of Duty mod project was shut down by Activision called SM2, another significant development, X Labs Project, has been forcefully closed. Third-party software running Activision clients and engines has been on a hunt by the publishers recently as the company does not agree with mods developed by the community and are available freely to the players.
Call of Duty X Labs Project receives a cease and desist letter from Activision and is forced to shut
X Labs Project was a Call of Duty project featuring modded versions of older franchise titles that restored all the elements the developers had removed, including dedicated servers, improved security, anti-cheat, mod tools, and more.
As this project used intellectual property that belongs to Activision, the company has the right to protect its assets and stop any third party from profiting from it. However, there is no information on why Activision is hammering down on community mods now when such Call of Duty projects have been around for many years.
Maurice Heumann, the leading developer of the X Labs project, tweeted this after the cease & desist from Activision:
"We have received a Cease & Desist letter on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the X Labs project. Because of that, we are also going to shut down BOIII. Thank you all for your support."
The X Labs Project had Ghosts, Modern Warfare 2 (2009), Advanced Warfare, and Black Ops III clients under their belt. Community modders had been supporting and adding content even after the developers and Activision stopped supporting them. This stoppage allowed the games to continue to have an active player base, which most likely will drop after the latest shutdown.
Plutonium Project, one of the last significant community mods remaining for the Call of Duty games, is still available for the players. However, it is pretty risky, as it seems Activision is taking down third-party projects individually. The project has clients for Black Ops, Black Ops II, Modern Warfare 3, and World at War, which might not be playable if the publishers decide to send the modders a cease & desist.
