People Playground’s Steam Workshop was hit by a malicious mod outbreak around February 1, 2026. The reported payload, called FPS++ and also seen in variants such as “FPS 99+,” presented itself as a performance mod, deleted or reset some People Playground data, and reportedly copied itself into users’ other Workshop creations.
Available reports describe a game-specific malicious mod or “Workshop worm,” not evidence that Steam or users’ entire PCs were infected. Anyone who may have launched the game with suspicious Workshop content should still clean the game directories and run a full security scan.
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What happened to People Playground?
The affected game was People Playground, the physics sandbox on Steam with application ID 1118200. Its Workshop contains both conventional mods and user-created contraptions, which made this incident more damaging than a normal broken upload.
The first widely reported payload was named FPS++. It was framed as a frame-rate or performance enhancement. Community reports also described infected copies with altered descriptions, tags, or “optimized” wording. That does not mean every Workshop item containing “FPS” in its name was malicious.
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The developer temporarily disabled Workshop support and issued a game update intended to block the behavior. Because an update may not remove files already downloaded to a Steam library, installing the patch alone was not a complete cleanup step.
See the contemporary reporting from Notebookcheck, GameSpot, and Kotaku.
How the Workshop worm spread
- A player subscribed to or downloaded the malicious Workshop item.
- People Playground loaded the content when the game launched.
- The payload reportedly searched installed or published People Playground content.
- It copied itself into other mods or contraptions.
- It allegedly reuploaded infected versions through the player’s Steam account.
- Other users could then download and launch those infected items.
This propagation is why unsubscribing from one “FPS++” item was not necessarily enough. Infected copies could have been placed in other Workshop items or local directories. Community technical discussions describe the behavior; reported figures for the number of affected items are not official totals.
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What data could be affected?
Reports do not describe one single generic “save deletion.” They identify several categories of People Playground data that could be removed, reset, or replaced:
- Saved contraptions.
- Local mods and mod metadata.
- Settings, controls, preferences, maps, caches, and statistics.
- People Playground achievements or game statistics.
- Published Workshop creations, which could be replaced or updated with infected copies.
These categories have different storage locations and recovery prospects. A missing contraption is a local-file problem; a missing Steam achievement is a separate account or platform-data issue. Do not assume that restoring one automatically restores the other.
Did it infect the entire PC?
Available technical reports indicate that the payload targeted People Playground data and Workshop content rather than unrelated files across Windows. They do not establish that the Steam client or Valve’s wider infrastructure was hacked, nor do they provide evidence here of password theft, file encryption, or infection of other games.
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That is not a guarantee that every affected computer is clean. The evidence is based largely on developer statements, community inspection, and reports of the payload’s observed behavior. Run a full antivirus or antimalware scan, particularly if the suspicious DLL was detected or if the PC showed other unusual symptoms.
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If you subscribed but never launched the game
The reported destructive behavior executed when People Playground loaded the infected content, not simply when a Workshop item was downloaded. Someone who subscribed but never opened the game with the item active may not have experienced the payload. Treat that as a likely distinction, not a guarantee: the files may still be on disk and should be removed or quarantined before the next launch.
Cleanup steps
- Stop launching People Playground. Exit the game and close Steam, or at least ensure the game is not running.
- Update the game through Steam. Use the current installed build available for your region and account.
- Preserve potentially recoverable files. Before deleting anything, copy important local contraptions or other evidence to a separate location. Do not restore unscanned mod files afterward.
- Remove the local Mods folder from the People Playground installation, following the developer’s cleanup guidance. A typical path is
SteamsteamappscommonPeople PlaygroundMods, although your Steam library may be on another drive. - Remove the game’s Workshop content folder:
Steamsteamappsworkshopcontent1118200
The exact prefix depends on your Steam library location. - Search for
FPSPlusPlus.dll. Check both the People Playground installation and its Workshop directories. Quarantine or remove confirmed infected copies using security software. - Run a full system scan. Microsoft Defender is already included with supported Windows installations; a reputable second-opinion scanner such as Malwarebytes is another option.
- Rebuild gradually. After cleanup and confirmation that the patched game and Workshop are available, download only clean content. Do not restore an old Mods folder wholesale.
Important: deleting the folders removes local mod copies but does not prove that Windows is malware-free, recover deleted files, or repair Workshop uploads. Reinstalling the game alone may also leave Workshop content in its separate Steam directory.
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Can deleted contraptions and saves be recovered?
Possibly, but there is no reliable recovery guarantee. Check the following in order:
- The Windows Recycle Bin.
- Backups or cloud-synchronized copies that predate the incident.
- Other copies of exported or shared contraptions.
- A file-recovery tool such as Recuva, used only after stopping unnecessary writes to the affected drive.
Continuing to install games, download Workshop content, or use the affected drive can overwrite deleted data and reduce recovery chances. Recovery software cannot restore files that have already been overwritten, and it cannot reconstruct every reset setting or statistic.
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Achievements require separate treatment. They are not simply another local contraption file. If achievements are missing, contact Steam support before considering unofficial tools; third-party achievement manipulation may violate platform or game expectations.
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Was Steam compromised?
The evidence supports a narrower conclusion: malicious user-created People Playground content was distributed through Steam Workshop and its automatic update mechanism. It does not establish that Steam itself was hacked.
The incident nevertheless highlights real Workshop risks:
- Subscribed items can update automatically.
- Ratings, popularity, and a familiar-looking creator identity are not security guarantees.
- Native or compiled mod components can have more serious consequences than ordinary configuration files.
- A malicious item that modifies and republishes content can reach users who never knowingly subscribed to the original payload.
Why the impact was unusually broad
People Playground’s combination of automatic Workshop distribution, user-created uploads, and content capable of including compiled components gave the payload an unusually effective route to spread. A player could trust a popular-looking performance mod, launch it once, and unintentionally help distribute altered copies through their own Workshop creations.
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How to distinguish the main failure modes
| Action | What it does | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Unsubscribe from one item | Stops that subscription | May leave local files and does not remove propagated copies |
| Verify game files | Checks official game files | May not clean Workshop or user-created directories |
| Delete Mods and Workshop folders | Removes local mod content | Can destroy the only remaining local copy of custom content |
| Reinstall the game | Replaces the main installation | May not remove separate Workshop content |
| Run antivirus software | Checks for malicious files and other threats | Does not recover deleted contraptions |
| Restore a backup | Can recover pre-incident data | Must predate the infection and be scanned before use |
The bottom line
People Playground’s Workshop suffered a serious malicious-mod outbreak in early February 2026. The reported FPS++ payload behaved like a game-specific worm: it could damage People Playground data and spread through user uploads. The available evidence does not show a general Steam-wide or whole-PC virus, but affected players should not rely on that distinction alone.
Update the game, stop launching it until suspicious content is removed, preserve anything you may want to recover, clean both the local Mods folder and Workshop directory, search for FPSPlusPlus.dll, and run a full security scan. Only then should you rebuild your Workshop library from clean copies.
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