Is there a controversial game called Plantation Simulator available to buy on Steam, where players motivate Black workers by whipping them? Yes, that's true: Plantation Simulator was released on Steam on May 12, 2026. The developer describes the game's content this way: "In this game, you will be whipping black people to keep your farm productive, If you whip your black person too much, they will die."
The game was mentioned in a post (archived here) on X on May 21, 2026, by @Pirat_Nation. It was captioned:
A controversial game called Plantation Simulator has been released on Steam and is receiving huge backlash from people calling it a slavery simulator. The game is described on Steam as a simple farming simulator where players motivate workers to work on a plantation. But the gameplay centers on a whipping mechanic applied to Black workers to increase productivity. The developer has described it as: 'In this game, you will be whipping black people to keep your farm productive. If you whip your black person too much, they will die.'
Included in the post is a 41-second screen recording of the gameplay. A screenshot from the video is pictured below.
(Image source: post by @Pirat_Nation on X.com.)
Steam is a platform where games can be purchased, created and played. The about page says there are nearly 30,000 games in the store (archived here).
At the time of writing, May 21, 2026, the Plantation Simulator game can be found on Steam (archived here). The game was released May 12, 2026, by the developer FzzyBzzy (archived here).
(Image source: store.steampowered.com.)
The Plantation Simulator page in the Steam store describes the game in part:
Step into the boots of a determined plantation owner in Plantation Simulator, a simple yet satisfying farming simulation set in America's plantation era. Your goal is simple: grow crops, manage your workers, and turn your plantation into a thriving farm!
But there is also a mature content description:
The developers describe the content like this:
In this game, you will be whipping black people to keep your farm productive, If you whip your black person too much, they will die.
This theme appears to violate the rules and guidelines of the Steam platform (archived here) which read:
We have a few guidelines about the content that can be distributed via Steam. Please keep these guidelines in mind when choosing whether to proceed with distribution.
What you shouldn't publish on Steam:
- Hate speech, i.e. speech that promotes hatred, violence or discrimination against groups of people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation
Lead Stories has reached out for comment to Valve Corporation, which owns Steam, and will update this article if we receive a reply.
