‘GTA V’s’ ‘Red Dead Redemption’ Mod Trailer Release Leads To Termination Of Project

Days after the trailer for the highly anticipated “Red Dead Redemption” mod for “Grand Theft Auto V” was released, the modders behind it announced the discontinuation of the project. The trailer has also been taken down by the mod team.

On Monday, the lead programmer of the mod, Mr. Leisurewear, announced via GTAForums the end of the road for the high-profile mod. “I know this is hard pill to swallow, but as you may have noticed we did get contacted, and we sadly have to say we are stopping this project,” the modder wrote. “So thanks guys, we were all so happy to see this, but it isn’t going to happen, sorry.”

Mr. Leisurewear’s announcement came as a shock to fans who were happy to finally get more information and the release date of the ambitious “GTA 5” mod last Friday. It appears that after the team debuted their trailer for the mod, they were right away contacted by Take-Two, the owner of the rights of the Rockstar Games series. The trailer has now been taken down by the modders, but some fans reuploaded copies of the video on YouTube.

The scrapping of the project comes more than two years after the team worked hard to create the mod, and it also comes weeks after the “Red Dead Redemption V” was announced in March. It’s also worth noting that a beta was supposed to launch this summer, as per GameSpot.

Aside from announcing the termination of the project, Mr. Leisurewear also clarified that what they were making wasn’t actually a PC port but simply a map taken from the Xbox 360 version of “Red Dead Redemption.” “We were only gonna get a way to convert the map with both legal copies of each game, and some custom scripted additional content,” the modder explained. “There was never any intention or mention to either port a storymode [sic] over from ‘RDR’ to ‘V.’” Kotaku learned that the team was also hoping to remake the map by adding “Parallax Occlusion Mapping and Tessaslation where applicable.”

Another thing that Mr. Leisurewear revealed in the forums is that he won’t be releasing the .While toolkit that could bolster the “GTA V” modding. The modder stated that he has been ordered to not release anything, for he could probably face a lawsuit should he do so. Hence, it’s also unlikely for fans to see the release of the mod in the future even though the lead programmer shared that he is holding on to the files he and other modders worked on for almost three years.

It is not something new for companies to shut down mods and projects that make use of their intellectual property. Nintendo previously took measures to shut down a fan-made remake of “Metroid II.” In addition, Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax had the free fan-made “DoomRL” taken down last year, as pointed out by PC Gamer.

Reports say it’s obvious that Take-Two’s move to have the “Red Dead Redemption V” mod canned was because “Red Dead Redemption 2” is scheduled for release later this year.