Ubisoft Shuts Down the Fan-made GoldenEye Remake in Far Cry 5
Ubisoft has removed an ambitious fan project recreating maps from the classic FPS GoldenEye 007 from Far Cry Arcade.
- Fan recreated the maps from GoldenEye 007 in Far Cry Arcade;
- Ubisoft removed them at the request of the IP rights owner;
- Thus three years of the creator's work went down the drain.
One of the coolest features of Far Cry 5 is the Far Cry Arcade mode, enabling players to create their own maps and share them with the rest of the community. A few weeks ago there was a lot of buzz about a project by youtuber Krollywood, which recreated all but two bonus levels from GoldenEye 007using this tool. Unfortunately, Ubisoft has just removed all these maps from Far Cry Arcade.
The loss for the community is huge, as this was one of the most impressive projects available in this mode. Krollywood spent more than 1,400 hours over three years to develop it. The creator does not think he will be able to bring it back. He explains that he is already on Ubisoft's radar and the company will keep track of what he uploads to Far Cry Arcade.
In a comment on the situation, the publisher explained that the decision to remove the maps was made at the request of the IP rights owner, MGM.
In this case, the situation is so problematic, because the maps in Far Cry Arcade didn't use any elements directly borrowed from the console original or the James Bond film series. Krollywood simply recreated the map architecture and quests, using only elements available in the editor. Ubisoft apparently felt there was no point in risking a legal conflict for a set of fan-made levels. The publisher tolerates other remakes, such as levels from Half-Life or Doom, because in the case of these projects the rights owners do not demand the removal of fan creations.
It is unlikely that the maps will be made available through other channels. One of the advantages of Far Cry Arcade is that you can use objects from many Ubisoft games to create levels, not just the earlier Far Cry games, but also Assassins' Creed or Watch Dogs. Necessary elements are downloaded from the server before starting the game. This solution causes that virtually nobody releases levels for FC5 for direct download to the player's hard drive, as is the case with traditional mods. One of the few exceptions is Kill Hotel Owner by SPY Interactive, but in the case of this project, only objects from the basic version of Far Cry 5 were used.
Unfortunately, in the future we will probably lose access to all maps in Far Cry Arcade. We know that FC6 will lack this mode and map editor. Ubisoft is not in the habit of maintaining online services indefinitely, so unless the publisher provides tools to export maps (which is unlikely), sooner or later all this will become unavailable.
