Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is coming to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam via PC, on October 31st, 2024. But, there’s going to be a big difference in how the game is coming for Japanese players and the rest of the world.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Suda51 has revealed in a new interview that Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered has been censored in Japan. In his words:
“We had to prepare two versions of the game, which is a real challenge. In remastering the game, we had to develop two versions at the same time, which had a tremendous impact on our workload and extended the development period.”
The game’s co-creator, Shinji Mikami, was very critical of Japan’s Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO) because of this. Mikami said:
“I think it’s a strange situation that there are people who want to play edgy games, and there are those who don’t play games who try to prevent their enjoyment by restricting those works with regulations.”
Mikami also brought up an incident from 2008, where CERO refused to give EA’s Dead Space a rating. As a result, Japanese gamers had to import the game if they wanted to play it. But this is really just scratching the surface.
Two years ago, Krafton and developer Striking Distance Studios cancelled the release of The Callisto Protocol in Japan. CERO told the developer to make a new version of the game to pass their certification, and the studio refused.
Earlier this year, this controversy reared its ugly head once again. An executive for Electronic Arts in Japan lambasted CERO on Twitter for what they argued were double standards in rating the American produced Dead Space remake from last year, and Shift Up’s PlayStation 5 exclusive Stellar Blade.
CERO once again refused to certify the remake of the game they effectively banned in 2008, and yes, that meant Japanese gamers had to import the remake if they wanted to play that too. But the EA Japan executive revealed clear instances where Stellar Blade had instances of gore and violence similar to what was found in Dead Space, and CERO did not even ask Shift Up to modify this content.
This revelation is even stranger considering that Dragami Games’ CEO Yoshiki Yasuda recently revealed that Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP passed certification around the world, and on all platforms, with no one asking them to modify any of this game’s content. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP’s Original Mode has the same gore and character designs from its 2012 release, and of course, both Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP and Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered were originally developed by Grasshopper Manufacture.
We can’t help but notice that there seems to be a similarity in Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP and Stellar Blade, that may be why CERO decided they didn’t need to be changed. But if their line of thinking is what we suspect it is, they clearly don’t understand the entertainment industries enough to be in the position that they are in. That’s a transparently antiquated line of thinking, that doesn’t take into account Japan’s own history of exploring taboos, even in the foundations of their own culture.
That’s why this line from Suda51 hits the nail on the head just perfectly:
“It makes me wonder who the restrictions are aimed at – at the very least, I don’t think they’re aimed at the customers who play the game.”
