There’s a Call of Duty climbing the top sellers list on Steam right now, and it’s not Black Ops 6. It’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, the 2016 re-release of 2007’s Call of Duty 4. It’s currently number three on the best-selling games list (by revenue) in the US and hanging out in the top 10 worldwide, beating out the likes of Dota 2, The First Descendent, and Baldur’s Gate 3.
That’s a bit weird at first glance—the remaster going on sale for $20 somewhat explains the sales bump, but it doesn’t account for why this one not particularly active CoD remaster is outselling every other game in the series and most other games on Steam.
The real reason for the renewed interest is way more fun, and very PC gaming: There’s a long-awaited fan mod coming out this week that revives classic Modern Warfare 2 (2009) multiplayer on PC, and you need this remaster to get it working.
The project, called H2M, is coming out August 16. On the mod’s website, developers say H2M aims to recreate classic Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer while adding “a wide variety of maps, new progression, unique camos, remastered weapons, custom attachments, and more.”
H2M isn’t publicly available for a few more days, but some YouTubers and streamers have gotten in early and are sharing very positive impressions. “I have been waiting years for this day,” said CoD YouTuber FaZe Scope upon seeing H2M’s main menu.
If you’re wondering why people care so much about another way to play a 15-year-old CoD, this mod is filling a big gap left by Activision when it officially remastered Modern Warfare 2 in 2020. Despite going through the trouble of recreating CoD4’s multiplayer in MWR, its sequel was strangely campaign-only. Fans were pretty miffed at the time, especially because Modern Warfare 2 is still considered peak CoD for many teens of the late aughts. Hence the excitement for this mod—H2M is strumming the dulcet chords of 2009 nostalgia, and giving the people something Activision won’t.
And more, actually. H2M includes remastered versions of every classic MW2 map, but it also features MW2 campaign levels retooled as multiplayer spaces. I absolutely have to know what that’s like. Rounding out the package is every CoD4 map as well, totalling 54 maps.
While I don’t share the strong desire to return to MW2’s days of rapid quickscoping and akimbo shotguns, I am interested in what is essentially a new Call of Duty multiplayer suite free of modern live service trappings. No battle pass, store tab, or paid XP boosters here—just plain ol’ challenges, camo unlocks, and prestige levels with a few modern touches that early players seem to love, like expanded attachments and inspect animations for every gun.
H2M will be free once it’s out on the 16th, but the devs say you need a legit copy of Modern Warfare Remastered to get in. Streamer MikeRxqe has also shared a workaround to a common MWR problem with modern graphics cards: Before jumping into H2M, be sure to launch CoD4’s campaign and turn off shader caching.
