Take-Two Interactive closed a Red Dead Redemption fan project after a lawsuit against developer Johnathon Wyckoff was filed on December 26. Wyckoff is the creator of the “Red Dead Redemption Damned Enhancement Project” fan project, which was supposedly intended to (improve) graphics and graphics in Take-Two’s Red Dead Redemption game and make it playable on a Windows PC – “A platform for which Take-Two itself has not yet published the Read Dead Redemption game (sic),” says the lawsuit.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was released on PC earlier this year, but the original game never came on PCs, only on consoles. (The only way to play Red Dead Redemption on PC was Sony’s streaming service, PlayStation Now.)
Wyckoff announced in September that the Red Dead Redemption Damned Enhancement Project had been “stopped,” but would later resume work in November. He announced the cancellation of the project on December 27 after the lawsuit was filed in a New York court, as first found by Torrent Freak.
“Take two fines that you win,” Wyckoff tweeted. “RDR1 project canceled. Stop the lawsuit, I have a damn life. You should have waited for me to contact you this week. Gosh, you don’t have to sue. Regardless of what you think you really killed modding. Wyckoff later tweeted that he was “in conversation” with Take-Two.
Take-Two lawyers said Wyckoff “publicly announced its intention to distribute unauthorized software files that would dramatically change the content of Take-Two’s video games,” including the import of the Red Dead Redemption map into Red Dead Redemption 2 and access to its “Enhanced” version of Red Dead Redemption on the PC. The company said it “repeatedly” asked Wyckoff to stop.
Several screenshots – from Discord, Twitter and various forums – published in suit show Wyckoff’s further work on the project. Wyckoff repeated in tweets that it was a modding project and not a violation.
Neither Take-Two nor Wyckoff responded to Polygon’s requests prior to publication.
