List of regionally censored video games

Many video games have certain elements removed or edited due to regional rating standards. While, in the past, games were often toned down when translated overseas, in terms of violence, religious references, profanity, drug use, etc., when compared to their Japanese counterparts,^[1] in recent years Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO), among other ratings organizations, have imposed harsher restrictions on violent games.^[2]

Multiplatform

• Fallout 3 - The side quest "The Power of the Atom" was changed in the Japanese version to relieve concerns about depictions of atomic detonation in inhabited areas. In non-Japanese versions, players are given the option of either defusing, ignoring, or detonating the dormant atomic bomb in the town of Megaton. In the Japanese version, the character Mr. Burke has been taken out of this side quest, making it impossible to detonate the bomb.^[3] Also in the Japanese release, the "Fat Man" nuclear catapult weapon was renamed "Nuka Launcher", as the original name was a reference to the bomb used on Nagasaki.^[3][4]
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - See Hot Coffee mod
• Indigo Prophecy - Sony and Microsoft had policies that they will never allow "Adults only" (AO) rated games on consoles. To earn a M rating from the ESRB, most of the scenes depicting sex (one of which is interactive) and other adult content were removed from the North American versions. An exception is the final sex scene between Carla and Lucas, which was not completely cut from the game due to its important role in the story, but was shortened by removing the more graphic shots and most of the visible nudity. Though one shot of nudity remains, in the edited version the angle that should have revealed Carla's fully naked breasts, the nipples were removed from her model skin, giving the appearance that the nipples were merely obscured from view, and thus avoiding any identifiable depictions of frontal female nudity.^[5]
• Monster Monpiece - About 40 of the 350 card images in the game were censored for sexually explicit material in the international PlayStation Vita release of the game.^[6] An uncensored port was later announced to be released on Steam for PC in 2016.
• Silent Hill Homecoming - The game had difficulties in passing censors in some countries before it could go on sale. The Australian classification board, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), refused to classify the game, due to "impact violence and excessive blood effects". The objectionable scenes included various body parts being drilled into, as well as the bisection of a character by an enemy. This had the effect of banning the game for sale in the country, and representatives for publisher Atari mentioned that they would be asking Konami to tone down the violence to allow the game to receive the needed MA15+ rating for its sale to be permitted in early 2009.^[7] The German version of the game was also postponed to 2009 in order for cuts to be made to pass the German censors.^[8]
• Saints Row IV - The Australian version of the game has had a mission removed in which characters steal and use alien drugs in order to give them stronger physical abilities. Portraying the use of illegal substances as a way to gain rewards is not permitted according to Australia's classification guidelines.
• South Park: The Stick of Truth - The European version of this game has all references to anal probing removed (there were 5). An abortion minigame was also cut. Ubisoft claimed that it was their decision to censor it.^[9]

Nintendo consoles

Nintendo Entertainment System

• Bionic Commando - The game was renamed from Top Secret: The Resurrection of Hitler (ヒットラーの復活 トップシークレット Hittorā no Fukkatsu: Toppu Shīkuretto), the character of Adolf Hitler was renamed "Master-D", the Nazis are renamed "The Badds" in-game (they're referred to as "The Nazzs" in the instruction manual) and all swastikas were edited into a German eagle insignia.^[10]

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

• EarthBound - In the North American version, a few of the game's materials been edited from the Japanese version. For example, Ness appears clothed in pyjamas instead of appearing naked. References to death were less obvious, a punishment is changed from spanking to loss of dessert, the phrase "Die and go to Hell" is replaced with "I'll smash your guts out!". However, this occurred after the ESRB was introduced, which was when Nintendo started to loosen their censorship rules. A red cross on hospital signs were removed to avoid any possible conflict with the Red Cross Organization, which registered the symbol as a trademark in some countries.^[11] The game was originally rated by ESRB as "K-A" (former rating equivalent of "E"), but despite the Wii U Virtual Console rerelease in 2013 retained these alterations and not being uncensored, the game has been re-rated as "T".
• Final Fantasy IV - In the North American version, references to Christianity were altered or removed from the game, as well as certain religious images. The magic spell Holy has been renamed White (Though the Elder of Mysidia uses the word Holy in describing a sword). All references to prayer are eliminated; the Tower of Prayers in Mysidia is renamed the Tower of Wishes (though the White Mage in the tower still calls it "Tower of Prayers"); and Rosa's Pray command is absent. Direct references to death are omitted, although several characters clearly die over the course of the game. Anything considered too risqué has been censored, such as bikinis on town dancers (replaced by leotards). The Programmers' Room special feature (in which the player can find a pornographic magazine) has been removed.^[12] New promotional character art was made for published previews.^[13]
• Final Fantasy VI In the North American SNES version, The town signs originally called Pub has been changed to Cafe. (Though the wine bottles can be seen.) Also the nudity with Espers such as the "Siren" has her butt covered with a skirt, Starlet now has her dress on. Also the enemies such as Critic, Alluring, the boss Chadarnook and Goddess now wears more clothes. Smoking has been toned down with the smoke taken out of the following enemies sprites: "Madam", "L. 80 Magic", "Dahling" and "Barb-e." (They can still be seen smoking cigarette pipes, however). Two spells were renamed, as well: the Death spell was renamed Doom, and Death Gaze was renamed Doom Gaze. The Christian crosses carved on the tombstones in the graveyard towns of Thamasa, Mobliz remains unaltered Also the Goddess Statue remains naked, the female Shiva Esper being naked with the cloth below her frontal and Terra being undressed as an Esper however remains unaltered.
• Final Fight - The game's first two bosses, Damnd and Sodom, were renamed Thrasher and Katana respectively (those names was also used in the SNES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 despite the game released after ESRB was formed); Belger's wheelchair was redrawn to look like an office chair; Poison and Roxy, two transgender enemy characters,^[14] were replaced with two male enemies named Billy and Sid;^[15] all alcoholic references were removed, with two health-recovering items replaced; the line "Oh! My God", spoken by an enemy when his car is destroyed during the first bonus stage, was changed to "Oh! My Car"; the blood splash effect shown when a character is stabbed is replaced by a generic explosion.^[16]
• Mortal Kombat - Due to Nintendo's "Family Friendly" policy, the SNES version replaced the blood with sweat and most of the fatalities with less violent "finishing moves".^[17]
• Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Much like Final Fight Sodom's name was once again changed to Katana on the character select screen. Swearing was also removed from some of the character's victory quotes except the word "Hell". Also the blood was wiped clean from this version in cutscenes. However, like Earthbound, Alpha 2 was released after the formation of the ESRB and once Nintendo cut back on censorship.
• Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts - In the American SNES version. Many of the Crosses on coffins on Level 1 has been altered to Ankhs symbol. There are however crosses on coffins in the middle and furthest background which remains unaltered.
• Super Mario RPG - Bowser's Middle Finger pose was changed for Western releases to be much less offensive, as this is considered a very obscene gesture in Western Territories.
• The Combatribes Changes have been made in the North American version including the bad guys faces bleeding being replaced with tears coming out of their faces. Later on in the Virtual Console release. The "Ground Zero" gang has been renamed to "Guilty Zero" due to the 9/11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
• Wing Commander (video game) - In the SNES version of Wing Commander and Wing Commander: The Secret Missions, changes have been made in the game from the PC game including the word "Devil team" being changed to "Angel team", also the cigarette smoking, alcohol shown in the PC version has been censored. Also the word "Hell" used by the Commander is replaced with the word "Heck".
• Zombies Ate My Neighbors - All depictions of blood and gore in the North American version are removed or changed to purple ooze.^[18] Censorship committees in several European Nations censored more by having the game renamed to Zombies and made other changes including the replacement of the chainsaw-wielding enemies with lumberjacks wielding axes.^[19]

Nintendo 64

• Crusin' USA - Many changes were made from the arcade game, including the name of the Shaft being renamed from "XL Power Shaft" to "XL Power", the billboard ad to Corn Pops with the slogan "Gotta have my pops" being removed. Deer and cows no longer cross the road, eliminating any possibility of running into deer and cows with the blood and body parts flying everywhere. Also the bikini clad woman with the trophy wears a shirt and dress. In the Washington DC tunnel the 100 dollar bill picture with Hillary Clinton smoking a cigar was replaced with a Benjamin Franklin 100 dollar bill. Also the hot tub scene at the White House with the Clinton president and the 2 bikini dressed women in the hot tub has been completely replaced with a rotating race car.^[20]
• Duke Nukem 3D - Many of the sexual references found in the PC Version have been either removed or toned down in the Nintendo 64 Version. The steroids have also been replaced with vitamins. Also some of the swear words have been either removed or edited as well.

Wii

• No More Heroes - In the versions released in PAL territories and Japan, blood spatter is removed. Decapitation scenes are implied, but not shown. Scenes of missing body parts after having been cut off, are replaced with the same scene, but showing the body parts fully intact.
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - Like No More Heroes, Japanese version is toned down violence scenes.

PlayStation consoles

PlayStation

• Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - A death animation in which Crash is squashed into a stunned head and feet was altered for the Japanese version of the game due to its resemblance to the severed head and shoes left by a serial killer loose in Japan at the time.^[21]
• Um Jammer Lammy - A few lines and an entire cutscene were altered for the American release, such as references to cutting down trees in "Power off, Power on!", and going to hell in "Taste of Teriyaki". Any references to hell were changed, and instead of slipping on a banana peel (and subsequently dying), Lammy gets her waist stuck on a door, and it stretches very long to sling her to a tropical island.

PlayStation 2

• BMX XXX - A North American version of the game disables the ability to create naked customized riders.^[22]

PlayStation 3

Some titles in the PlayStation 3 library have been censored according to the console hardware, resulting in consoles from certain regions directly altering game content, regardless of the region in which the game was produced.

• Beyond: Two Souls - The European version of the game is censored to keep the PEGI rating at 16 instead of 18. Two changes were made to the version, amounting to 5–10 seconds of gameplay.^[23]
• The Last of Us - The European release of the game is censored. The version doesn't feature dismemberment and exploding heads in the multiplayer mode.^[24]
• Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe - In order to ensure a T rating in North America, two Fatalities in the game were censored.^[25][26] In the United Kingdom version, both the Joker and Deathstroke's first Fatality feature them each finishing their opponent with a gunshot to the head, with each respective shot shown uncut from a distance. However, the North American version has the camera quickly pan toward the victor before the shot is fired, thereby cutting the victim out of the shot completely.^{[27][28][29][30]}
• Resistance: Fall of Man - Blood is removed from the game when played on Japanese consoles. Players can work around this by using an altered save file or copying save data from a North American console.^[31]
• Siren: Blood Curse - The North American version of this game was heavily censored to receive "Mature" ESRB rating. An extremely violent stabbing scene in the intro is omitted in U.S. version, by the way of applying shaky camera motion filters & altering the video angle itself. A scene where Seigo Saiga commits suicide by placing a .338 caliber hunting rifle in his mouth and blowing his head and brains out. Characters & enemies show a significantly lower amount of blood splatter decals on skin, clothes, and face.
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - Blood is removed from the game when played on Japanese region PS3.^[31]

PlayStation 4

• Until Dawn - A death scene was censored in the Japanese version of the game.^[32][33]

PC

• Command and Conquer Generals - Due to the game previously being banned in Germany, EA released a title-localized German version specifically for the German market called "Command & Conquer: Generäle", which did not incorporate real world factions or any relation to terrorism. For example, the "terrorist" suicide bomber unit was transformed into a rolling bomb and all other infantry units were changed into "cyborgs" in order of appearance and unit responses similar to earlier releases of the Command & Conquer franchise.^[34]
• Left 4 Dead 2 - In Australia, the game was originally banned due to the high levels of violence in the gameplay. Valve then submitted a 'censored' version of the game, which no longer contained images of "decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies". The game received the MA15+ rating (the highest possible rating at the time in Australia), and was allowed to be released in the Australian Market.^[35] The German version is similarly censored.
• The Witcher - All the female portrait cards shown after Geralt's "sexual conquests" were censored ("retouched to a more modest standard") for the U.S. release version.^[36]
• Quest for Glory I 1989 The first release was originally called "Hero's Quest I" but due to a copyright infringement by "HeroQuest" board game company. Sierra changed the title to "Quest for Glory I" in the later versions.
• Space Quest I 1988 In the original release of Space Quest I it featured a robot store called "Droids R us", but "Toys R Us" sued the Sierra Company for copyright infringement and the later releases have "Droids R Us" changed to "Droids B Us" in both the original and remake. Also in the Space Quest I remake, it featured "ZZ Top" band at the bar. But ZZ Top sued the Sierra company for copyright infringement and they replaced them with Aliens instead.
• World of Warcraft In the European version players are unable to acquire Wolpertinger pet by completing a quest that requires getting their character drunk. In the Chinese version, blood is black instead of red, and virtually all bone-looking objects are removed or replaced (e.g. no skeletons, sand bags instead of bone piles, undead without exposed bones...). Initially, the whole expansion Wrath of the Lich King was banned.
• DreamWeb, Full frontal nudity was censored in the Australian version.^[37][38]

References

1. "Nintendo Censorship". Filibustercartoons.com. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
2. Contact Brian Ashcraft: Comment (2007-11-21). "Uncharted Gets Totally Censored". Kotaku.com. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
3. "Bethesda Softworks Statement of Fallout 3 Censorship" (in Japanese). Bethesda Softworks. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
4. Snow, Jean (November 11, 2008). "Fallout 3 Pulls Nuke References for Japan". Wired. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
5. Klepek, Patrick (17 December 2009). "Unlike Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain Won't Be Censored In The US". G4. G4 Media. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
6. Haywald, Justin (January 22, 2014). "PlayStation Vita card game censored for US and EU releases for "intense sexual imagery"". GameSpot. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
7. Pattison, Narayan (September 29, 2008). "Silent Hill Aussie Ban Update". IGN. Retrieved October 8, 2008.
8. Furin (September 22, 2008). "Silent Hill: Homecoming delayed until Q2 2009 for Germany". silenthill5.net. Retrieved October 8, 2008.
9. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-25-south-park-the-stick-of-truth-censored-in-europe
10. Per Arne (November 15, 2002). "The Horror!". Encyclopedia Obscura. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
11. http://earthboundcentral.com/m2eb/onett/
12. Kelley, Ian. "FF4j/FF4j Easytype Changes FAQ". FFCompendium. Retrieved 2006-09-12.
13. Averill, Alan (1991). Nintendo Power November, 1991. Nintendo.
14. Capcom. Final Fight (in Japanese). Super Famicom. Level/area: Instruction manual, page 25.
15. Sheff, David. Game Over. p. 225. ISBN 0-679-40469-4. With Capcom USA, Phillips's team edited some of the grislier games that came in from its Japanese parent company, although Capcom's own censors weeded out the most offensive touches... When a Capcom USA representative suggested that it was tasteless to have the game's hero beat up a woman, a Japanese designer responded that there were no women in the game. 'What about the blonde named Roxy?' the American asked. The designer responded, 'Oh, you mean the transvestite!' Roxy was given a haircut and new clothes.
16. 日米ファイナルファイト比較 (in Japanese).
17. "Gamespy's The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming". Archive.gamespy.com. Retrieved 2012-06-11.
18. "Nintendo: Banned in the USA". 2009-07-22. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
19. Webster, Andrew (2009-05-19). "Z-Day Approaches: A Look At The History Of Zombies In Games". Retrieved 2009-10-26.
21. Andy Gavin (February 6, 2011). "Making Crash Bandicoot - part 5". All Things Andy Gavin. Retrieved May 25, 2013. Naughty Dog would do a huge amount of work after this on the game for Japan, and even then we would always release a Japanese specific build. Whether it was giving Aku Aku pop up text instructions, or replace a Crash smashing "death" that reminded them of the severed head and shoes left by a serial killer that was loose in Japan during Crash 2's release, we focused on Japan and fought hard for acceptance and success.
22. Daniel Armstrong (November 8, 2002). "Acclaim Australia: BMX XXX Interview". Game Power Australia. Archived from the original on December 12, 2007. Retrieved November 27, 2007. Specifically, there's an option in the game where you can create a naked rider - you can create a female rider who's completely naked, but you can't create a male rider who's completely naked. [...] There is an NTSC version created in America which doesn't feature the naked Create a Rider feature, so releasing that here could be an option.
23. Yin-Poole, Wesley (1 October 2013). "Sony confirms Beyond censored in Europe". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
24. Yin-Poole, Wesley (5 August 2013). "Naughty Dog confirms European version of The Last of Us censored". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
25. Kelly, Neon (July 11, 2008). "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe Interview". VideoGamer. p. 1. Retrieved June 3, 2010.
26. Williamson, Steven (November 10, 2008). "MK vs. DC Universe U.S. version cut, U.K. gets more gore". PlayStation Universe. Retrieved June 3, 2010.
27. Leahy, Brian (November 6, 2008). "'Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe' Less Censored In Europe". G4TV. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
28. "Mortal Kombat vs DC 'Joker & Deathstroke UK Fatalities'". GameVideos. December 1, 2008. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
29. Williamson, Steven (November 10, 2008). "MK vs. DC Universe Interview with Senior Producer, Hans Lo". PlayStation Universe. Retrieved June 3, 2010.
30. McElroy, Griffin (October 26, 2008). "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe toned down to keep T-rating". Joystiq. Retrieved June 3, 2010.
31. "Uncharted censored in Japan". PlayStation Universe. November 21, 2007. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
32. Makuch, Eddie (August 27, 2015). "See How PS4's Until Dawn Is Censored in Japan". GameSpot. Retrieved August 28, 2015.
33. Phillips, Tom (August 27, 2015). "Until Dawn death scene censored in Japan". Eurogamer. Retrieved August 28, 2015.
34. "Command & Conquer: Generäle". schnittberichte.com. January 28, 2007. External link in |publisher= (help)
35. Ivan, Tom (October 8, 2009). "Left 4 Dead 2 Secures Australian Release". Edge. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
36. Burnes, Andrew (October 24, 2007). "The Witcher Preview". IGN. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
37. Kuorikoski, Juho (November 2014). "Hulluuden anatomia". Pelit (in Finnish) (Fokus Media Finland) (11/2014): 68–70.
38. Booker, Logan (10 November 2012). "In 1995, DreamWeb Was Refused Classification In Australia. Now It's Freeware". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved 28 August 2015.