Back in January 2019, we informed you about a new mod for the first Doom game that aimed to overhaul its visuals. Created by modder ‘vasyan777’, Doom Remake 4 brought with it High Resolution textures with PBR materials, 3D models of every object and enemy, New HUD, Brutal mods with plenty of blood and gibsmore lights, support for the Vulkan API and more. However, it appears that this mod is no longer under active development.
A few days ago, Zenimax sent vasyan777 a Cease and Desist letter, stating that the current use of the Doom IP on the Doom Remake 4 website and social media pages is without Zenimax’s authorization and is infringing. As such, the modder had to take immediate steps to remove all uses of ZeniMax Media Inc intellectual property, including DOOM copyrights, trademarks, characters, artwork, images, and logos and desist from any further use.
At first, vasyan777 thought that this C&D letter was due to the fact that this was a standalone mod. Contrary to other mods that required the presence of the original Doom game, Doom Remake 4 could be played without requiring it. The modder made some changes to his mod, with its latest version requiring the original game itself, however that wasn’t enough.
Zenimax has sent the modder a subsequent rejection letter, rejecting the new version of his mod. Zenimax claims that the problem with the mod is the third-party game engine it is using, something that makes no sense as the mod is basically using GZDoom; an engine that pretty much all current mods support (even Brutal Doom; the mod that inspired id Software for the execution kills in Doom 2016).
As vasyan777 said:
“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).”
In short, Doom Remake 4 is no longer under development and its ModDB page has been taken down!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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It’s “illegal to use a 3rd party game engine with the DOOM IP?” Isn’t that explicitly allowed under the license which the DOOM source code was released?
” Zenimax claims that the problem with the mod is the third-party game engine it is using, something that makes no sense as the mod is basically using GZDoom”
Yet Heddon on steam can be bought.
good ! 3d models and animations are ridicolous
Add Zenimax and its subsidiaries to the companies I no longer support. Guess I’m not buying Deathloop, Wolfenstein, Ghost Wire or anything else now. Doom Eternal looks terrible anyway.
What exactly looks terrible?
It looks like Doomslayer in Wonderland. (Or is it Rage 2?)
So Doom can only be on Mars or Earth? It can only be sci-fi? And what is fantasy if not demons from Hell?
Non sequitur.
Then based on what did you reach the conclusion that it looks like Wonderland?
Zenimax can eat shet big time
Is anyone really that surprised why do they even try getting away with it we all know what usually happens.
Absolutely. Complete the work, then release it before the mailman arrives.
Zenimax does understand (I ask rhetorically because they clearly don’t) that id essentially invented PC modding, right? Doom is the reason modding came to be. Modding is the reason Doom is relevant in 2019. Without the THOUSANDS of wads and custom doom builds, no one under the age of 30 would even know what Doom is because Doom would have died after the hilariously bad Doom 3 buried the franchise. People are still modding Doom. Romero is still making levels and releasing them. People are selling games made with gzdoom on Steam. For money.
But nah.
You’re right, but Doom 3 was AWESOME for what it was.
Zenimax is “corporate” media group…ofcourse they DON’T/WILL NEVER understand!
People are still modding Doom. Romero is still making levels and releasing them. People are selling games made with gzdoom
I’m still playing it.
Download the last version while you still can
They should seek legal counseling.
Zenimax are just pissed that a Doom mod got good enough to jeopardize attention to their own releases.
There’s nothing illegal about this mod, and nothing’s different about it from any other mod, except from it being really good.
reported for anti semitism
Good thing I downloaded it last week.
Sharing is caring.
The anti-Semitism is depraved.
How depraved.
vasyan777’s entire ModDB account is gone now too. I don’t know if he terminated it of his own volition of if ModDB was forced to purge his entire account at the behest of Zenimax’s lawyers. He also renamed his Youtube account to “Mr Vasily”. I don’t know if he decided to rename it or if he is expecting Zenimax’ lawyers to go after his Youtube account (I am not sure here but if your Youtube account gets deleted does your entire google account get deleted with it?).