Since launching on Dec. 6, Marvel Rivals has quickly become one of the most popular games online. The 6v6 competitive hero shooter that pits players against each other using a variety of Marvel characters has drawn heavy comparisons to Overwatch, although its current popularity dwarfs that of Blizzard’s game with a Steam player count hovering around 400 thousand peak users daily.
With that level of visibility is bound to come controversy, and like Overwatch before it, Marvel Rivals has become a hotbed for the modding community that’s taking off in unnerving ways. While most mods (short for modifications made by users) are standard horny fare like giving already sexualized characters even more salacious redesigns (see: “Goth Mommy Mantis”), one recent trend has provoked ire with the introduction — and subsequent banning — of president-elect Donald Trump in the game.
Last week, users began uploading the mod, which crudely plasters Trump’s face over the character model for Captain America, to the U.K.-based website Nexus Mods, a popular home for sharing community mods for PC games. The site’s moderation team, which had previously removed and banned similar mods for President Joe Biden on Jan. 2, were quick to scrub the Trump mod from the site, which they claim violated their Terms of Service against inflammatory political content that they’ve upheld since October 2020, ahead of the previous U.S. presidential election. The decision to remove access to the Trump content from the Nexus Mods site was swiftly met with backlash online.
In an official statement released yesterday on X (formerly Twitter), Nexus Mods addressed the reactions online, pointing toward their official Terms of Service and pushing back on targeted abuse against its staff that they say has run rampant since the ban was issued on Jan. 6. “Unfortunately, some of the content uploaded to the site becomes a magnet for conflict, division and mob harassment,” the post said. “In 2020 we updated our Terms of Service to state that we would remove any American political mods from our site. By removing the Trump mod, we are simply executing our existing file submission policies. What has been overlooked in much of the conversation is that we also removed other mods featuring U.S. Presidents uploaded to the site for Marvel Rivals, such as Biden and Obama.”
In response to critics on social media who are calling the removal of the mods a form of censorship, the post also notes that Nexus Mods is privately owned and not subject to claims of violating freedom of speech. “While we have the right to choose what we host on our platform,” it reads, “we are not the authority on what you do or do not decide to mod into your games, and these mods can be found elsewhere on other sites.”
The original Captain America model (left) vs. the Trump mod (right).
NetEase Games
The last part of that statement is key, as Nexus Mods do not own or control the right to Marvel Rivals, nor can they prevent anyone from uploading or sharing the Trump mod to other platforms. They’ve simply prevented access to it on their own site.
Nevertheless, the issue has been contentious. On Jan. 6, prior to the formal statement on X, Nexus Mods owner Robin Scott responded to a now-locked Reddit post decrying the company’s suppression of “freedom of expression.” Here, no punches were pulled. “We also removed the exact same mod with Joe Biden’s head at the same time (on the 2nd of January) to ensure there was no bias,” Scott said under the username NexusDark0ne, “and because we don’t want to handle all the nutjobs that come out the woodwork whenever these mods get posted. Funny how the outrage-bait YouTubers don’t mention that, isn’t it?”
“Case in point, today, with all the nutjobs coming out of the woodwork sending us death threats,” the post continues, “calling us pedos and all the other ‘wah wahs’ that come with this ridiculous situation because some YouTuber told them we are only removing Trump mods.”
The mod is superficial, changing only the visual design of the character model’s face.
NetEase Games
Scott goes on to say in the post that the Nexus Mods staff shouldn’t have to deal with harassment from “whackjobs,” and that any mods related to the topic will continue to be banned.
The mod itself doesn’t actually change the gameplay of Marvel Rivals in any meaningful way, instead serving as little more than way to immediate make everyone in the game lobby cringe with its ghoulish design that looks more like a melting Michael Myers mask than anything else.
Outside of the politically themed uploads that crept up around the U.S. presidential election in 2020 that resulted in the change of the site’s Terms of Service, Nexus Mods had previously removed Trump mods in games like Fallout 4 as far back as 2015.
As a now, the publisher of Marvel Rivals, Chinese studio NetEase, has yet to publicly comment on the situation. The Trump-faced mod remains available on file-sharing sites other than Nexus Mods for anyone looking to ruin an otherwise fantastic game.