UK counter-terrorism unit demands Steam withdraw controversial shooter from sale

Valve has removed a game from its British Steam storefront following a request from the UK’s counter-terrorism unit.

The FPS/TPS Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque – which describes itself as “address[ing] the Israel x Palestine conflict from a Palestinian perspective” – was removed when Steam contacted developer Nidal Nijm to inform him it had “received a request from authorities in the UK to block the game and have applied such country restrictions”.

In an email to the Brazilian developer, Steam allegedly said: “We’ve received a request from authorities in the UK to block the game and have applied such country restrictions”. When the developer reportedly asked if there was “a specific reason” for the UK ban and said “my game is not too much different than any other shooter game on Steam, like Call of Duty”, he was told:

“We were contacted by the Counter Terrorism Command of the United Kingdom, specifically the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU). As with any authority for a region the [sic] oversees and governs what content can be made available, we have to comply with their requests.”

In an email to 404, a counter-terrorism spokesperson said: “The CTIRU works closely with a range of technology, social media and online service providers, but we do not comment on specific content or any communication we may have with specific platforms or providers.”

“The region lock of my game in the UK was clearly due to political reasons,” Nijm wrote in a statement to the same publication.

“I do not blame Valve nor Steam, the blame is on the UK government and authorities that are pissed off by a video game,” Nijm said. “On their flawed logic, the most recent Call of Duty Black Ops 6 should be banned as well. As you play as an American soldier and go to Iraq to kill Iraqi people. What I can say is that we see clearly the double standards.”

The game – which was updated to include the 7th October attack given it released in April 2022 – calls itself “the Palestinian Max Payne on steroids” and the “most BASED game of all times”. It has already been banned in Germany and Australia for not going through the countries’ respective classification boards.

The game is still available to buy online outside of the UK, including the US. In the UK, however, the Steam page simply throws up an “Oops, sorry!” message, saying, “this item is currently unavailable in your region”.