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Back in July, we told you that The Evil Within would be censored in Japan. The censorship of the vanilla The Evil Within was applied to give the game a CERO D rating (an equivalent to an M or Pegi 18 rating) and since Japan tends to shy away from some of the heavier stuff in terms of gore (removing decapitations in Resident Evil 4, removing blood from Resistance and a bunch of others) if this wasn’t done, the game would have received an Adults Only rating, and that would kill its sales in Japan.
Thankfully for those Japanese fans who really want to get their blood and guts on, the gore that was cut from the game would be available to Japanese players through DLC, Gore Mode. This would essentially give those players the same game that everyone else got, and if you pre-ordered the game, you got it for free!
Except now that it’s arrived…it doesn’t do that. Not entirely, anyway.
Kotaku reports that the Japanese version of The Evil Wit–ehh, Psycho Break, even with the Gore Mode DLC applied is still censoring dismemberment, but only for human characters. Monsters are not affected by this censorship, but pretty much any human body that you find in some state of mutilation is censored. Take a look at these images collected from Famitsu.
So for example…
Above: brutal, disgusting, uncensored! Below: uhh…a set of keys hanging above a deli platter?
These next two images are from the North American version of the game, where Sebastian gets blown up. It’s rightfully gory and disgusting and everything fans would want from such an experience. Kablammo!
Gore Mode DLC tends to nerf the gore in that previous scene pretty badly. You’re still dead, but it’s not nearly as…exciting? Disturbing? Gory? Even though “Gore Mode” is the name of the DLC?! What’s the point even?
Well then.
It should be noted that having the Japanese version of the game doesn’t completely wreck the experience. They do pull out a lot of the stops that were put in to just barely grab a CERO 18 rating, such as exploding headshots and other depictions of dead bodies.
But still, why call it Gore Mode and say you’re going to give players the same stuff as a Western release if you’re still going to censor it? These might not be big qualms in relation to the overall enjoyment of the game, but there’s something to be said about lying to your customers, particularly if this Gore Mode helped you sell a boat-load of pre-orders.
[Source]
