US rep asks Valve to remove ‘Oct. 7’ game from Steam

U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is calling for Valve to pull the controversial game Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which has players acting as a Palestinian resistance fighter, from gaming platform Steam.

The game, created by Brazilian developer Nidal Nijm, has already been removed from Steam in several countries, including the United Kingdom, following a request for removal from the U.K. Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit, 404 Media reported. Nijm also said that the game is blocked across the European Union due to EU violations flagged by the French government’s cybercrime unit. In an email from Valve that Nijm showed to Polygon, the violation is of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2021/784, which addresses the “dissemination of terrorist content online.”

Fursan al-Aqsa was released in 2022, but remained relatively unknown until the Libs of TikTok account on X published a clip of the game: “Video game available on @Steam allows players to simulate being a Hamas te*ro*ist who k*lls Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’” the account posted. In November, Nijm released an update called the “Operation al-Aqsa Flood Update,” which alludes to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel by having Palestinian fighters paragliding into an Israeli military base. As reported by 404 Media in November, the Fursan al-Aqsa Steam page doesn’t reference Hamas, but does show its player character wearing a green headband associated with the group.

In his letter to Valve, which was sent to Polygon via a news release, Torres said that Fursan al-Aqsa “glorifies barbaric violence and terror against Jews.” He wrote that Valve, by hosting the game, is complicit in “normalizing the most monstrous forms of antisemitic violence and terror—like beheadings, suicide bombings, and the war crimes of October 7th.” Torres is asking for the game to be removed from Steam in the U.S.

Nijm told Polygon there’s a double standard in media when considering his game and the likes of military shooters such as Call of Duty.

“Everyone knows my game is not a competitor to Call of Duty, in the technical point of view, but on its message, yes, it is a game that touches on a very important topic,” he wrote in a direct message on X. “What is freedom of speech? Why big AAA studios can make controversial games and it is considered as a ‘form of art’ but when I created such a game, Fursan al-Aqsa, many people and groups come over me trying to censor my game and accusing it of ‘terrorist propaganda.’”

Nijm is referring to how war is often depicted in video games like those in the Call of Duty franchise, where players can participate in what are essentially real-life wars with real-life weapons — and are rewarded with incendiary weapons like white phosphorus to kill people en masse. For decades, Arabs have often been the de facto bad guy in military shooters. Nijm rejected the claim that Fursan al-Aqsa is “terrorist propaganda.” He told Polygon over email: “Fursan al-Aqsa game only shows the other side of the story, the side of Palestinian resistance, remembering that the UN recognizes the right of populations to resist oppression and military occupation.”

Valve has not responded to Polygon’s request for comment.

Despite the high-profile controversy around Fursan al-Aqsa, the game has failed to surpass more than 25 concurrent players since its release. It received a surge of players — from eight concurrent players to 16 — after the posting of the Libs of TikTok clips, before dropping back down to single digits. Following the U.K. ban in November, the game rose from a peak of six concurrent players in October to a high of 25 in early December. Despite the low player count, Fursan al-Aqsa has an “overwhelmingly positive” review score on Steam across 664 reviews. Only 257 of those reviews have played for more than an hour.

Update: This story has been updated to include new information about the EU ban, and additional comment from Nijm.