The developer of Garry's Mod has announced it is in the process of removing all Nintendo-related content from Steam Workshop after receiving a takedown request from Nintendo.

In a posting to Steam, Facepunch Studios confirmed the takedowns were in fact legitimate - perhaps in contrast to previous takedowns this year thought to be sent by a fraudster. Facepunch added that the request was "fair enough" given that the content does belong to Nintendo, but noted that the process would take time as "we have 20 years of uploads to go through."

"If you want to help us by deleting your Nintendo related uploads and never uploading them again, that would help us a lot," Facepunch wrote.

Nintendo has historically been extremely protective of its owned content, having in the last year issued legal challenges to Palworld Pokemon mods, a popular Switch emulator, and a Nintendo 64 Portal revival that used the official Nintendo 64 SDK. So Nintendo asking (well, demanding, really) for Nintendo-related content to be taken out of a goofy sandbox game isn't shocking.

What's a bit more surprising is how long it took Nintendo to actually do anything about it. Twenty years is a long time to let mods like this one that lets you fill the world with gun-toting Marios or this one that turns Waluigi into a weapon go unremarked upon! It's not like this has been some well-kept secret, either. Garry's Mod's whole deal is letting people, well, mod it. You're supposed to throw a bunch of weird characters and items and ideas together in its sandbox and make goofy scenarios. That's what's made it such popular streaming and video fodder.

Searching for "Mario" in Steam Workshop for Garry's Mod at the time of this post brings up over 5,500 entries alone, and Luigi listings are at over 1,200. "Zelda" brings up 800. "Kirby" gets 739. "Waluigi" has 286! This is a gold mine we're losing, here!

Regardless of what prompted Nintendo to start caring about this now, care they do - so say goodbye to making jumpscare horror games starring Kirby in Garry's Mod. IGN has reached out to Nintendo for comment.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Decades after it took place, the Chornobyl disaster remains so ingrained in the public imagination that it's easy to forget its terrible real-world consequences. But Chornobyl Liquidators, a new immersive sim set to release in June, aims to delve into some of that history in what developer Live Motion Games calls a "commemoration of the disaster and its victims."

A new gameplay trailer released by Live Motion Games and publisher Frozen Way highlights how the new historical sim will put players in the boots of the Liquidators — the firefighters, soldiers, and other personnel who were called in to deal with the consequences of the 1986 nuclear disaster. According to the official release, it will use historical documents and other items from Soviet Ukraine to present what it's calling an authentic version of the event, but with a fictional story.

"In this production, you won’t have to face mutated creatures or anomalies caused by radiation," it reads. "Instead, you will experience the actual consequences of the reactor failure at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant."

Live Motion Games says that Chornobyl Liquidators will take care to create a "mature and emotionally engaging narrative that incorporates moral decision-making," with features including a stress mechanic that makes it more difficult to complete quests, and can even result in a heart attack. Players will experience the story from different perspectives, and will participate "directly or indirectly in episodes that happened between late April and mid-September 1986," with two possible endings.

As the worst nuclear disaster in history, Chornobyl, as highlighted in HBO's award-winning miniseries, Chernobyl (Ukraine has increasingly referred to Chernobyl as "Chornobyl" in the wake of Russia's 2022 invasion, choosing to privilege the Ukrainian name over the Russian version). It is a key location in the STALKER series, and also the setting for one of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's most memorable missions.

Both Frozen Way and Live Motion Games are based in Poland, with Live Motion Games' catalogue including Train Station Renovation and Bakery Simulator. Chornobyl Liquidators is being developed for Steam, and will release on June 6.

Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler has taken the time to sing the praises of early access, going as far as to say that FromSoftware’s seminal action RPG, Dark Souls, might have benefited from the communication-driven model if it had been around upon its release.

The Ori and the Blind Forest developer spoke about how the studio has utilized early access for its upcoming action title, No Rest for the Wicked, in a post on X/Twitter. Mahler says that releasing the pre-release version of its game in this way is “one of the best decisions we could have made.” He even goes as far as to say that Moon wouldn’t be able to ship its eventual 1.0 build without feedback from fans.

“I think as games become more and more complex and sophisticated, we'll see some form of Early Access happening more and more often,” Mahler explains. “Speaking from our own experience, there is just no way we could have ever shipped Wicked 1.0 without being able to see all the data we're seeing now and getting all the feedback from users. And I mean actual users, not a Focus Testing Group.”

We're not even a week into Early Access and it's already pretty clear that going with EA is one of the best decisions we could've made 👍❤️

I see some people are still irked about why games like Wicked, Hades 2, Larian's new game, etc. launch into Early Access even if the studio…

The Moon CEO takes his appreciation for early access one step further by suggesting that some past video games might have benefited from early access if it would have been an option. The example he uses is 2011’s Dark Souls.

“Imagine Dark Souls 1 would've been in Early Access,” Mahler adds. “Instead of From rushing to ship a boxed product in a somewhat unfinished state, they probably would've been able to look at the second half of that game and still fully form and polish the less polished areas like Lost Izalith, etc.”

While Dark Souls is often thought of as a turning point for FromSoftware, some late-game areas have been known to be criticized by many in the past. Mahler points to Lost Izalith as one offender, though longtime Souls enjoyers have also taken issue with the layout of areas like the Demon Ruins and Blighttown, too. The latter location was notorious for causing frame stuttering issues upon Dark Souls’ original release.

Mahler elaborates, saying that more substantial issues can’t always be fixed by post-launch updates and DLC.

“Shipping games is always incredibly difficult and stressful and most of the time it means making quite drastic compromises, especially if your product is trying to accomplish something new. And if you don't know that it's okay to bring in certain features and scope after the fact, you'll just end up cutting before you hit the market.”

While Xbox and PC both offers avenues for developers to release early access versions of their games, Mahler hopes PlayStation and Nintendo eventually begin to implement similar offerings. He hopes those who criticize early access at least see the value in a method that allows “developers to truly perfect a product over time.”

No Rest for the Wicked launched in early access on April 18, 2024. We gave this early slice a 7/10 in our review, calling it a “compelling and unique action-RPG” that still has some kinks to work out. Moon launched its newest tweaks with a hotfix that released yesterday.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.