The heyday of DLC packs and season passes was starting to take shape, so publishers saw free post-launch content as a threat to that model. When Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2 launched, it became clear publishers were no longer interested in keeping the dream alive. The questions were often about the complexity of the suite itself and level of access to game code it provided, not whether or not they'd be there. If not at launch, then at some point soon after. And until both of these sequels launched, the expectation was that mod tools would inevitably arrive.

The oldest memory I have of the push to slowly eradicate mods goes back to the days of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.Ĭall of Duty and Battlefield were among the biggest, most popular AAA shooters on PC.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the idea of mods in mainstream games started to die. No matter how big or popular a service-based game gets, they inevitably run out of things to do and begin haemorrhaging players - until the next big piece of content arrives.