On September 22, 2026, the workshop for the sandbox game *People Playground*—developed by mestiez and published by Studio Minus—was shut down after it was discovered that one of the game’s mods contained malware.
Malicious malware found in a mod—the second such incident for the game
*People Playground* is a 2D sandbox game characterized by physics-based gameplay and relentless, brutal depictions of stick-figure-style characters. The game, which allows players to freely build their own environments and enjoy the characters’ vivid reactions, had garnered approximately 300,000 Steam user reviews as of September 24 and is rated “Overwhelmingly Positive.”
On September 22, the Steam Workshop for this game was shut down. The cause was a malicious mod, which reportedly contained malware with the following characteristics:
It permanently deletes a significant amount of the victim’s personal data.
It corrupts Steam settings and cloud data for other Steam games.
It reads Discord usernames and other personally identifiable information and publishes them to the Workshop (currently disabled, so they cannot be viewed).
To spread the infection, it automatically uploads itself to the Workshop.
If you installed a mod and played the game between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. Japan Standard Time on September 22, you are advised to run a virus scan immediately, change your Discord password, and, as a precaution, change the passwords for all your important accounts.
It should be noted that this game was also affected by a mod containing malicious malware in February 2026 (Reference: 4Gamer article reporting the February malware incident).
These days, even popular games like “Escape from Dakkof” and “Mecca Chameleon” have seen malware infiltrate their mods. You’ll need to be very careful when installing mods.
"People Playground" is currently available on PC (Steam) for 1,010 yen.
￥26,500
(価格・在庫状況は記事公開時点のものです)
