The popular mod site is shutting down Marvel Rivals mods that let you play as Trump and Biden
Since then Marvel Rivals launched last month, the PC modding community has gone to work creating a litany of content for the shooter, from new skins and model exchangeto fresh beats for Luna Snow to jam at her best. But one of the biggest modding communities online has found itself in a firestorm of death threats over the removal of a series of mods that transform Captain America in America’s top politicians.
In general, many of the cosmetic mods for Rivals that appeared post-launch are harmless – they are client-side changes, not server-side, meaning only players who have installed the mod (either the user himself or others in a match with it installed) will see this is what you gave spiderman his Sam Raimi costumeor turned around Iron Fist in Deku from My Hero Academia. But even so, there was an uproar this week after one of the biggest online mod sites, Nexus Mods, banned a series of mods that replaced Captain America’s heads with stylized interpretations of President-elect Donald Trumpand current President Joe Biden.
While the mods themselves were removed from Nexus last week on January 2nd, today the Nexus Mods X account released an extended statement clarifying the decision after community moderators and site owners faced a barrage of harassment and death threats over allegations of bias and censorship. “In 2020 we have updated our Terms of Service to state that we will remove all US political mods from our site,” the statement said reads in part. “By removing the Trump mod, we are simply enforcing our existing file submission rules. What has been overlooked in much of the conversation is that we have also removed other mods involving US presidents uploaded to the site for Marvel Rivalslike Biden and Obama.”
“While we have the right to choose what to host on our platform, we are not the authority on what you do or do not decide to mod your games, and those mods may be found elsewhere on other sites,” the statement concluded, before linking to Nexus Mods’ terms of service page.

Earlier this week in already locked reddit thread criticizing the decision, Nexus Mods owner TheDarkOne noted that several members of the Nexus Mods moderation team faced abuse for removing the Trump mod, while ignoring a similar decision to remove the Biden version as well. “Such a case, today, with all the freaks coming out of the woodwork, sending us death threats, calling us pedos, and all the other ‘wows’ that come with this ridiculous situation because some YouTuber told them we were only removing Trump’s mods.” “
“It’s so dumb and these people are so dumb, I really can’t screw it up. I don’t expect any of my staff to engage in these fraudulent jobs other than to show them the door,” TheDarkOne continued. “So we’re deleting any mods we see/reported to us on the topic, and any people who get upset by this can chime in because it’s really not worth our time or effort to care about.”
Suffice it to say, if you want Captain America to dip into some back lines as an actual figure in American politics (and again, it’ll be mostly for your own enjoyment, not whatever poor strategists you’re harassing in-game), you’ll have to find your fix elsewhere. But maybe you should ask yourself if Steve himself would approve before you look them up – and also why not something infinitely cooler and have his Marvel vs. Capcom theme game when he uses his ult instead?
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