It’s not uncommon for a popular game to get mods, though a Donald Trump-themed mod for the recently-launched Marvel Rivals has been seemingly banned.
The new mod turned Captain America, one of the characters in the new 6v6 Marvel super hero-themed PVP shooter, into president-elect Donald Trump.
Though the mod was just released on the most popular modding portal Nexus Mods, it is now listed as unavailable on the platform. Numerous “nude” mods like Nude Squirrel and Nude Mantis remain available, though.
No explanation was given for the removal of the Marvel Rivals Donald Trump mod, though it’s possible this was a blanket ban stemming from their broad-reaching 2020 policy to prohibit any politics-related mods. Even if this was the case, it remains confusing how any policy on this subject is being maintained at this point.
“This ban will apply to all mods uploaded from the 28th of September (of 2020) onwards,” Nexus Mods staff said at the time. “We will review this restriction sometime after the next President of the United States has been inaugurated.”
The decision to blanket ban any mods related to United States politics came just ahead of the highly-contested 2020 Presidential election between then-incumbent president Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden.
At that time, Nexus Mods said the ban was a response to a “spate of provocative and troll mods being uploaded based around current sociopolitical issues in the United States”, weeks ahead of the 2020 election.
Even if this is the case for the ban on the Marvel Rivals Donald Trump mod, it was immediately clear at that time that mods simply featuring the likeness of political figures like Donald Trump were allowed. The Marvel Rivals Donald Trump mod is one such mod, so a decision to ban the mod is confusing at best.
Marvel Rivals is now available across for Windows PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.