Nexus Mods takes down Starfield mod removing pronouns, reinforces stance on inclusivity

Nexus Mods, one of the largest sites for game mods, has deleted a mod that removed pronouns from Starfield’s character creator. This option to select different pronouns became a hot-button topic prior to Starfield’s release, with a small but vocal minority of the game’s player base demanding refunds after discovering the feature in early access.

The mod in question affected the pronoun selector from the game’s character creator entirely. According to multiple player reports, this mod removed he/him and she/her pronouns, defaulting everyone to they/them and occasionally botching moments of dialogue to the point where conversations became nonsensical.

“Hosting this mod was not for us and it is certainly within our rights not to host content on our platform,” Nexus Mods wrote via email to 404media. “It’s not a ‘political statement’ or an ‘alignment to one side or the other in the culture war.’ We stand for diversity and inclusion in our community and the removal of diversity, while appealing to many, does not promote a positive modding community.”

Prior to Starfield‘s official release, a small but vocal minority of the player base rallied together and claimed they would refund their purchase because of the game’s addition of pronoun choices in the character creator. This movement was largely fueled by YouTuber Dan Vasc, who posted a video in which he loudly ranted about how gender pronouns ruined his immersion in the space RPG.

An overwhelming majority of the player base opposed this anti-pronoun movement, saying it was an overreaction to the accessibility feature. Starfield’s pronoun selection in the character creator screen primarily impacts how NPCs address you in-game; it’s a feature players see only when designing their characters, merely a fraction of their time spent in the RPG.

Nexus Mods has remained one of the largest platforms for game mods over the years, hosting mods for a variety of games, like Spider-man 2, the Fallout franchise, and Baldur’s Gate 3. The most recent removal of the Starfield pronoun mod is not the first time the website has taken action against what it deemed as discriminatory mods. In 2022, the site took down a mod that censored Pride Flags from Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered.

At the time of this Spider-Man mod’s removal, Nexus Mods posted a statement to make its stance on inclusivity very clear: “We are for inclusivity, we are for diversity.”