Turns Out That CERO Wasn’t at Fault After All
So violent video games are often censored in Japan. Not by removing the violence or adding extra options for peaceful conflict resolution, of course–by removing the blood. Most of the time, Japanese gamers accept this as part of the package, but when Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla rolled out in Asia with almost no blood spurts to speak of, people got upset. It’s not just Japanese gamers who protested; people in Taiwan and Korea were also campaigning for the game to be uncensored. Their reasons range from the lack of blood breaking the immersion of playing as a violent Viking to having difficulty telling if their attacks were connecting without any helpful arterial spray. As of writing, Ubisoft has announced that they’re working on a patch to add the gore back into the Japanese version of Valhalla which will be implemented sometime in December.
Just to be clear, gamers aren’t just mad because they like their blood and guts–they’re mad because Ubisoft didn’t announce they were going to censor the blood. The censorship list of the Japanese version, as published on October 25th, consisted of this:
- Toned down the depiction of severed limbs
- Modified the torture scenes where internal organs are seen
- Modified the decapitated heads
- Topless female characters will be covered
Blood and the absence thereof wasn’t mentioned at all. Originally, the company claimed that the changes were made due to Japan’s strict age regulations. However, CERO quickly cleared this misunderstanding up and explained that it wasn’t their fault the game had been censored. Ubisoft then admitted that the lack of blood and guts was due to an internal problem. Nice try, Ubisoft. Now give us our blood back.
Would you play Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla without the blood splatter? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.