Total War: Rise of Mordor has been removed from Mod DB following a DMCA takedown claim filed by Warner Bros.. Development of Total War: Attila’s ambitious total conversion mod will continue, according to the developer, who is also looking into rebranding to avoid similar issues in the future.
“… we have received word from ModDB officials that Warner Bros has sent them a DMCA takedown request to remove Rise of Mordor from their databases. We are grateful to ModDB for giving us time to put our affairs in order before the page is taken down,” read a post announcing Total War: Rise of Mordor’s departure from Mod DB.
“From what we know, this has to do with copyright infringement, as WarnerBrothers holds rights to making games related to both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. At the same time, we do not know the specific reason triggering their intervention, seeing as we are a modification for an existing game and a non commercial project.”
“We have sent emails to the Intellectual Property team of Warner Brothers and we are currently waiting on some form of answer, as well as a way to continue uploading our work here. Our developers are still going strong and you will soon see some previews we’re sure you will enjoy!”
The developer also clarified that only the Mod DB page was taken down, so Total War: Rise of Mordor remains available on Nexus Mods at the time of writing, although it’s unclear for how long.
The mod will also go through a process of rebranding, which involves a name change that doesn’t include copyrighted elements. Fans are invited to pitch ideas via this Google form.
We’ve reached out to Warner Bros. for comment and will update this article as soon as we hear back.
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