Nighthawks Labelled Adults Only on Steam Ahead of September 22 Launch, Publisher Wadjet Eye Games Confirms Delisting in Multiple Countries

The upcoming vampire RPG Nighthawks has been classified as Adults Only by Steam and is no longer appearing in the storefront's default search, publisher Wadjet Eye Games confirmed on September 13, 2026, with the label triggering outright delisting in countries including Germany, China and Saudi Arabia ahead of the game's planned September 22 launch on PC.

Wadjet Eye founder Dave Gilbert first disclosed the situation in a public post on Bluesky, saying Steam had "classified Nighthawks as an adult game and has excluded it from searches." He added that "Valve is under the impression that this game is way sexier than it actually is," and later argued Valve was "basically treating Nighthawks like a porn game." SteamDB, a third-party tracker that mirrors Valve's metadata, recorded the Adults Only designation and country restrictions in a September 12 snapshot of the title's store page, while still showing Nighthawks as a prerelease entry scheduled for September 22.

The classification matters in practice because Adults Only games are hidden from Steam search by default, forcing prospective buyers to log in, verify their age and adjust their preferred content settings before the listing becomes visible. In some regions the label can also trigger outright removal. Wadjet Eye's PR lead Richard Cobbett told PC Gamer that the Adults Only flag is a serious commercial hit, calling it "very bad news for us" because it "immediately makes the game persona non grata in several important countries like Germany" just ten days before launch.

Wadjet Eye and developer The Curiosity Engine have pushed back on the rating. Both say Nighthawks' depictions of nudity and sex are mild and usually comedic in tone, and that companion-romance scenes generally end in a "tasteful fade to black" rather than explicit content. Cobbett argued the game is mature thematically but "far less explicit than anything you'd see on HBO," and that anyone "not scandalised by the likes of Dragon Age" will not be surprised by Nighthawks either. Steam's adult-content policies do not publish a hard line for what counts as Adults Only; instead, Valve age-gates games based on developer-supplied descriptions and applies further restrictions for content that could run afoul of payment processors, card networks and regional ISPs.

The situation echoes a string of recent indie cases in which Steam's adult-content review process has disrupted smaller releases. In July, the adventure game Future? No Thanks! was held in review for weeks after reviewers flagged "dozens of untextured polygons depicting ass and boobs" in a single sequence; it eventually launched on September 4. Wadjet Eye says it has asked Valve to revisit Nighthawks' rating and is hopeful the "scarlet letter" comes off in time for launch, with PC Gamer confirming it has reached out to Valve for comment.

Nighthawks is a vampire-themed urban fantasy RPG set in a world where the existence of vampires has been publicly revealed. Players take control of a newly turned vampire trying to build a life — and a nightclub — among humans, recruiting ten companions and using supernatural abilities such as Mesmerism, Natural Dominion and Tenebrous Form. The game ships with more than 800,000 words of writing, full voice acting, art from Ben Chandler and music by Thomas Regin, and was funded on Kickstarter by 3,934 backers. Wadjet Eye's Nighthawks store page on Steam remains live, with a September 22 release date, even as the Adults Only label affects its discoverability.