“Warning: Harmful Mod on Steam Workshop Mimics John Carpenter’s The Thing by Replacing Files, Developer Reveals”

If you’re diving into People Playground and enjoy using mods, you may have noticed that the Workshop is currently disabled. This isn’t a random glitch; developer Mestiez has taken it offline due to the discovery of a concerning infection spreading through game mods.

On February 1, Mestiez shared an update detailing the situation. A “malicious addon” has been circulating in the Workshop, prompting the temporary removal of mods and providing guidance on how to play the game safely.

Initially, the specifics of this infection were unclear, but the team has since gained a better understanding. It appears that the infection deletes the Contraptions folder, which is where your saved contraptions are stored, along with several other important files related to People Playground.

Fortunately, measures have been implemented to safeguard against any damage, but the Workshop will remain offline until Mestiez can communicate with Steam about the issue. They have reached out to Valve but are still awaiting a response.

Mestiez noted, “If you have created any mods, it replaces them with itself. This is how it spreads.” It seems to exploit the process of uploading mods to various platforms, which is both clever and frustrating.

So far, it seems that the damage has been minimal, but with over 300,000 reviews on Steam, there are plenty of potential targets. A situation like this could wreak havoc in mod-heavy communities, such as those for Skyrim or Fallout: New Vegas. Here’s hoping Valve collaborates with Mestiez to prevent further issues and secures the Workshop against this type of threat.

In other news, the new owner of GOG believes it doesn’t need to outshine Steam completely; it just needs to improve in certain areas. “If there’s a version of the game that’s clearly better on GOG, and it has the promise that it will run forever… people will come.”