Hatred, a game its creators at Polish game company Destructive Creations describe as “an isometric shooter with [a] disturbing atmosphere of mass killing,” is back on Steam Greenlight after being briefly removed yesterday.

Hatred has been surrounded with controversy from the very beginning, with game journalists like Polygon’s Collin Campbell calling the announcement “the worst trailer of the year”, referring to the game as a “murder simulator.”

The developers attempted to publish the game through Valve Corporation’s Steam Greenlight, which allows Steam users to vote on some of the content they would like to see added to the Steam store.

Yesterday, Hatred’s campaign was shut down and it was suddenly yanked from Steam Greenlight with no other explanation than that it violated the platform’s terms of service.

“Even though games like Manhunt or Postal are still available on Steam we of course fully respect Valve’s decision, as they have right to do so,” the Destructive Creations team wrote in response to the shutdown. “After only a couple of hours Greenlight campaign being live, Hatred gathered 13,148 up votes and ended up#7 on a on top 100 list. This is the best proof for us that there are diehard Hatred fans out there waiting for this game to be released.”

Despite the controversy surrounding the game, Hatred had already developed a strong following, who reacted to the game’s removal. Many echoed the developers’ statements, questioning why Hatred was singled out for removal when there were other equally violent games already being sold through steam.

Brought back by executive order

Within less than a day of being removed from Steam Greenlight, Hatred’s campaign was reinstated and added back to the site. The developers said that Valve founder and owner Gabe Newell was personally responsible for the renewal.

“It’s simply an amazing thing to get such a great news from Gabe Newell himself!” they wrote.

Destructive Creations posted a screenshot of the email they received to their Facebook page.

“Since I wasn’t up to speed [on the removal], I asked around to find out why we had done that,” Newell wrote. “It turns out that it wasn’t a good decision, and we’ll be putting Hatred back up.”

Newell added: “Steam is about creating tools for content creators and customers. Good luck with your game.”

Destructive Creations thanked fans for their support, saying that Hatred is now number one on Steam Greenlight.