The Steam Workshop for People Playground has been disabled by developer Mestiez due to a malicious mod that has been found to distribute malware. Players who used mods on September 21st are advised to run virus scans and refrain from launching the game until the developer deems it safe.
Mestiez announced the issue on September 22nd via a Steam post, stating that the mod is "especially bad." The developer urged affected players to delete all mods from their game folder and avoid opening People Playground until further notice. The malware has the potential to delete significant amounts of personal data, corrupt Steam configuration and cloud data for other games, and even leak personal information from Discord accounts to the Steam Workshop.
While initially stating the malware did not steal credentials, Mestiez later revised this, recommending users change passwords for important accounts to invalidate any potentially compromised session tokens. The developer has emphasized personal responsibility for the incident, choosing not to speculate on the source of the malware.
This marks the second time this year that People Playground has been targeted by malware via a Steam Workshop mod. A similar incident occurred in February, which also led to the temporary disabling of the game's Steam Workshop and involved the manipulation of player files, contraptions, and mod lists.