Landfall Closes Content Warning Steam Workshop After Malicious Mod Reports
If the self-replicating behavior is real, removing the flagged mods individually would not fix the problem, which explains why the whole Workshop is shut rather than pruned.
Key Facts
- Landfall Games announced on October 20 that the Content Warning Steam Workshop is temporarily disabled.
- Landfall recommends that Content Warning players delete all mods downloaded from the Steam Workshop.
- The reopening date for the Content Warning Steam Workshop is undecided, and Landfall says it wants to reopen as soon as possible.
- People Playground closed its Steam Workshop on September 22 after malware appeared in a mod published the previous day, the second such closure for that game.
- Content Warning is available for PC via Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
Reporting from 3 sources: Automaton, GameBusiness.jp, Game Spark.
Landfall Games announced on October 20 that it has temporarily disabled the Steam Workshop for its co-op horror game Content Warning and is recommending users delete every downloaded mod until the problem is resolved. In Content Warning, two to four players descend into an underground ruin called the Old World, film the monsters inside, and post the footage to an in-game site called SpoökTube for ad revenue that buys upgrades. The closure follows the discovery of unofficial mods that may carry malware. The company has not named the mods involved and says the reopening date is undecided, though it wants to restore the Workshop as soon as possible. Users on Discord and Reddit describe the malware stealing information from the host PC and, in some cases, taking Discord credentials to send friends links to suspicious sites. Some reports describe a self-replicating function: the malware takes Steam credentials and posts further infected mods to the Workshop.
Landfall's own wording is narrow: it asks players to delete downloaded mods "until the issue has been dealt with" while it checks every mod before restoring the Workshop. The company has not published a list of affected mods.
The pattern is familiar on Steam this year. On September 22, the sandbox game People Playground closed its Workshop after malware appeared in a mod published the previous day, the second such incident for that game after a similar problem in February. Malware-laden mods have been reported in multiple games on the Workshop since the start of the year.
Automaton frames the risk around how the Workshop works: subscribing installs and auto-updates a mod with one button, which is why the malware spreads so easily. The same piece suggests users run a virus scan, change passwords for online services, and turn on two-factor authentication.
Game Spark and GameBusiness.jp both list the platforms as PC via Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. Both say the reopening date is undecided and that Landfall wants to reopen as soon as possible.
Reports of self-replicating behavior remain unconfirmed by Landfall. Automaton cautions that this is speculation based on the situation, and reasons that simply deleting the flagged mods would not be enough if the malware really reposts itself.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 3 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.