Fan Doom Remake 4 Shutdown After C&D Issued by Zenimax

Doom Remake 4 Mod is Shutdown

Over the last few years, a small group of fans of the original Doom have been working hard to release a mod that essentially updated all of the original graphics seen in the game. This mod essentially added 3D models (replacing the 2D sprites) and also looked to implement dynamic shadows.

While the mod was released last January, work has continued to attempt to improve it further. In a report via DSOGaming, however, the party is officially over as Zenimax has issued a cease and desist order to the creators which has resulted them in them having to delete it.

Initial Confusion

Initially, the main creator of the mod “vasyan777” thought that the main problem may have been the fact that this was a ‘stand-alone’ mod. In other words, it didn’t need the original Doom to actually play it. As such, they released an updated version which did require the original game.

It seems, however, that Zenimax didn’t have a problem with that, more the fact that it used the GZDoom mod. A factor that doesn’t make much sense since this is essentially used in a lot of other mods.

With no compromise found, the mod simply had to be deleted.

“Unfortunately I had to remove all downloads due to legal issues not being sorted. I thought ZeniMax would approve the new build because this time it was distributed as a mod, but it seems the problem was a ‘third-party game engine’ which they said is illegal to use with Doom IP (this is very weird since Doom Remake 4 was bundled with GZDoom which is just a Doom source port forked from original Doom engine which is GPL).”

What Do We Think?

This is all a bit weird to be honest. Admittedly, Doom is quite a hot franchise and as such it’s hardly surprising that the lawyers would get involved. Despite Zenimax’s seeming denial, it probably was more than a little to do with the fact that the mod was released as a stand-alone game.

It is, however, always sad to see such huge labours of love from the most dedicated fans get treated this way. I’m sure that a compromise could have been found, but it seems that ZeniMax at least were not interested.

What do you think? Did you try this mod out? Do you with developers were a little more open to fan projects? – Let us know in the comments!