Dying Light patch, DMCA takedowns target modders - report [Update]

Dying Light developer TechLand has issued a statement following the DMCA takedowns of mods this morning.

Update: The developer has posted a statement on Dying Light's Steam Community page.

"With the recent patch (1.2.1) on Steam we blocked cheating to make sure the game’s PvP system (Be The Zombie) would not be abused. This, however, had the side-effect of hindering mod-makers from making changes to the game.

"Creating obstacles for modders has never been our intention, and we are sorry for the inconvenience. We are now working on a quick patch that will re-enable common tweaks while stopping cheating in the game’s multiplayer mode.

"At Techland, we have always supported the mod community, and loved seeing how our own game can be changed by the players. A big part of the original Dead Island’s success was the passion and creativity of mod-makers from our community. We want the same for Dying Light. For quite some time, we have been working, and still are, on giving modders all the power we can. We will keep you updated!"

Original Story: A recent Dying Light update has made it much harder to mod the game.

According to the patch notes, the change "blocked cheating by changing game’s data files", which is good for multiplayer - but as "changing game's data files' is pretty much what modding is, it has also affected innocent single-player mods.

This is annoying enough, but TechLand and Warner Bros. also seem to be so set on preventing modding that they have leveraged copyright to prevent the spread of mods. According to Reddit users, DMCA takedowns have been issued on Dying Lights mods hosted on media sharing sites.

The reported purpose of affected mods was to remove the film grain effect, which seems pretty harmless.

The takedowns have sparked considerable ire amongst TechLand fans as Dead Island had a creative modding scene which kept interest in the PC version alive much longer than the console releases.

Thanks, Destructoid.