Hatred is back on Steam Greenlight (update)

Destructive Creations' ultra-violent shooting spree game Hatred is back on Steam Greenlight, the day after Valve removed the controversial title from its platform.

Hatred was pulled from Greenlight, a section of Steam that Valve uses to gauge community interest in software, just hours after Polish developer Destructive Creations submitted the isometric shooter for consideration.

"Based on what we've seen on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam," Valve's Doug Lombardi said of the decision to pull the game. "As such we'll be taking it down."

"Even though games like Manhunt or Postal are still available on Steam we of course fully respect Valve's decision, as they have the right to do so," Destructive Creations said in a response to Hatred's removal. "In the same time we want to assure you that this won't in any way impact the game's development, game's vision or gameplay features we're aiming for."

Destructive Creations said early response to Hatred on Steam Greenlight was positive, garnering 13,148 up-votes from the Steam community. It was ranked seventh on Greenlight's top 100 list, according to Destructive Creations, before it was pulled.

"This is the best proof for us that there are diehard Hatred fans out there, waiting for this game to be released," the game's developer said. "And that we need to keep going to deliver them a game that offers exciting and challenging gameplay."

We've contacted Valve and Destructive Creations for comment on Hatred's reappearance on Steam Greenlight.

Hatred was unveiled in October as a playable "genocide crusade" in which the player character slaughters innocent civilians and law enforcement in an effort to "spread Armageddon," rack up a high body count and die in a spectacular fashion.

"You will go out for a hunt, you will clear the American soil off humans with cold blood," the game's Steam Greenlight description reads. "You will shoot, you will hurt, you will kill, you will die. There are no rules, no compassion, no mercy, no point of going back. You are the lord of life and death now and you have the full control over lifes [sic] of worthless human scum."

Update: According to Destructive Creations, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell apologized to the developer for the game's removal from Steam Greenlight. The developer of Hatred published the following email from Newell to Destructive Creations creative director Jarosław Zieliński on its Facebook.

Hi, Jaroslaw.

Yesterday I heard that we were taking Hatred down from Greenlight. Since I wasn't up to speed, I asked around internally to find out why we had done that. It turns out that it wasn't a good decision, and we'll be putting Hatred back up. My apologies to you and your team. Steam is about creating tools for content creators and customers.

Good luck with your game.

Gabe