Valve Removes Controversial Steam Mod After South Korean Government Request
- Sagar Mankar
- Jul 8
- 2 min read
Valve has quietly taken down a Steam Workshop mod called Gwangju Running Man, following a formal request from the South Korean government.
The mod was removed globally around June 12, 2025, after concerns were raised about its inaccurate and deeply offensive depiction of one of the country’s most important historical events — the 1980 Gwangju Uprising.
For those unfamiliar, the Gwangju Uprising was a pro-democracy movement led mainly by students and civilians against South Korea’s military dictatorship. It ended in brutal violence, with government forces cracking down hard and leaving hundreds — possibly thousands — dead. The incident remains a painful but powerful moment in the country's push for democracy and is commemorated annually.
But the Gwangju Running Man mod took a very different approach. Instead of portraying protesters as victims of state violence, it framed them as violent rioters and justified the military’s actions. Even more controversial, the mod used imagery of former President and military general Chun Doo-hwan, the man who led the crackdown, effectively glorifying a figure widely condemned for his role in the massacre.
South Korea’s Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC) initially blocked the mod within the country. But as the mod gained global attention, GRAC escalated things and directly contacted Valve, asking for a worldwide removal. Valve agreed — which, according to Automaton and PC Gamer, makes this one of the rare times Valve has globally removed user-generated content at the request of a foreign government.
The company typically avoids removing mods or games unless there are legal issues, blatant abuse of the platform, or intense public backlash. We've seen this with games like Active Shooter, which was removed due to the developer’s history of misconduct, or Domina, which was delisted after the dev used the patch notes as a platform for hateful commentary.
But those were internal decisions by Valve. What makes this case unique is the external influence from a government over historical and political sensitivities.
As of now, Valve has not issued a formal public statement, though it reportedly acknowledged the importance of the historical event and its significance to South Korean citizens.