For those of us who’ve been keeping an eye on the Stellaris modding scene since launch, it took disturbingly little time for a variety of far-right content to appear on the Steam Workshop. Within days of the game’s launch, several Nazi-themed mods were available for download, many adding national socialist imagery to Stellaris flag creator. Thankfully, it sounds like Paradox Interactive is keeping an eye on the situation and the publisher isn’t afraid to take down offensive content.
The first such mod to be pulled is a relatively small addition to the game called European Phenotype And Names Only (White Humans). The mod’s sole purpose is to replace multicultural populace of the United Nations of Earth, the default human faction in Stellaris, with an all-white nation that Stormfront could be proud of. The mod is currently still available from other third-party sites; however, it seems unlikely the community creation will ever make its way back onto Steam.
“We shipped the game originally with an accurate representation of humans, that is to say diverse in both ethnicity and personality," Paradox told Eurogamer . "We embrace the idea that players mod the game to best represent how they want to play, we do NOT however wish to enable discriminatory practices.”
According to Eurogamer, Paradox Interactive is already investigating a second Stellaris mod, Separate Human Phenotypes, which lets players create human empires using any one of the four skin tones typically used for human empires. The company hasn’t offered an official stance on the mod yet but we have a pretty good idea of what will happen if Paradox doesn’t like what it sees. The publisher has also asked fans to continue reporting offensive mods via the Steam Workshop.
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