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A busy mod community quickly sprung up around popular multiplayer shooter Marvel Rivals—there are over 500 mods already and it’s only been out for a month—but with mods, as always, comes drama. The current squall kicked up around the Nexus Mods’ removal of a couple of mods for Marvel Rivals: one which replaces Captain America’s head with Donald Trump’s, and another that replaces it with the head of US President Joe Biden.
On Reddit, Nexus Mods owner TheDarkOne explained the reasoning behind removing the two political mods in a refreshingly blunt manner, pointing out that players and onlookers furious about the Trump mod being removed seem to not have noticed that the Biden mod was removed right along with it.
“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 and because we don’t want to handle all the nutjobs that come out the woodwork whenever these mods get posted,” TheDarkOne said in a now-locked Nexus Mods subreddit thread. “Funny how the outrage-bait YouTubers don’t mention that, isn’t it?”
I presume TheDarkOne is referring to influencers who have posted videos with titles like “Gamers DESTROY Nexus Mods After Marvel Rivals Trump Mod BANNED” yet make no mention of the Biden mod getting the boot at the same time. And, as always seems to be the case, some reactions to the mod being removed from the site have gone far beyond simple complaints.
“Case in point, today, with all the nutjobs coming out of the woodwork sending us death threats, 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,” TheDarkOne continued.
“I’m not expecting any of my staff to have to handle these whackjobs any more than showing them the door either. So we delete all the mods we see/that get reported to us on the topic, and all the people this upsets can trot-on because it’s really not worth our time or effort to care about.”
This is not the first time Nexus Mods has faced backlash over removing political mods, though the site has been pretty forthright about its policies. Back in 2022, it deleted a mod that removed Pride flags from Spider-Man Remastered, stating “…we are for diversity. If we think someone is uploading a mod on our site with the intent to deliberately be against inclusivity and/or diversity then we will take action against it.”
It’s also worth noting that Nexus Mods isn’t the only place that distributes mods, so if you desperately want to turn Captain America into Trump in Marvel Rivals, you still can. Just download the mod somewhere else.
“We aren’t the authority on what users can and cannot mod. Us removing a mod only means it cannot be found at Nexus Mods, nothing more, nothing less,” Nexus Mods posted in 2022. “As a private business, we have a right to choose what content we do and do not want to host on our platform.”
And on a personal note to anyone complaining about either of these mods being removed: why do y’all want to replace Captain America with a doddering senior citizen who has a face like a melted candle when you could replace him with someone like Optimus Prime or a Victrix guard from Warhammer? That’s way more fun, if you ask me.
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Kurt Indovina
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