Horror game fans in Japan are waking up to some brutal news this morning, after one of the biggest genre releases of the year, Halloween: The Game, announced it will skip release on a major platform in the country.
Developers behind Halloween: The Game shared on X that their highly-anticipated multiplayer adaptation wouldn’t be released on PlayStation in Japan due to strong censor pushback. The game features “visceral violence and nudity” which has fallen foul of Japan’s strict rules on in-game gore, and IllFonic said they are not willing to make changes to content as it would "significantly compromise the worldview of the original film."
Based on trailers and gameplay footage, Halloween is set to feature Michael Myers in his natural habitat: slaughtering and maiming unsuspecting victims. Like the film series it's based on, players will give dramatic chase before catching and killing other players in an asymmetrical multiplayer experience. The game will also feature a single-player campaign which will allow players to terrorize the inhabitants of Haddonfield as the famous masked killer.
The banning at least confirms to fans that Halloween: The Game will be true to the horror franchise’s slasher roots, and proves developer IllFonic has spared no efforts to make a viscerally realistic game. The horror title has already been banned in Australia, but surprisingly not because of gore—instead, Aussie censors objected to the presence of controlled substances in the game. IllFonic is well known for its previous adaptation of Friday the 13th, which featured similar asymmetrical gameplay and brutal kills at the hands of Jason Voorhees.
The game will still be released on Xbox and PC in Japan on September 9, only skipping PlayStation due to the company’s stricter rules they enforce in partnership with Japan’s national censor.
Japan’s game licensing authority, known as the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO), often requires game makers to make adjustments to titles which depict gratuitous violence and murder. Its highest rating, Z, which is similar to an 18+ rating in other countries, comes with stringent requirements that limit player exposure to extreme gore.
Not permitted is any depiction of beheading or severed limbs—one of CERO’s largest taboos and fastest ticket to get your game banned. Internal organs exposed through violence can also not be shown, along with pools of red blood or environmental design which features corpses or mutilated bodies. Even with the country’s highest game rating, titles are not allowed to feature any scenes of prolonged torture that focus purely on human suffering.
The banning at least confirms to fans that Halloween: The Game will be true to the horror franchise’s slasher roots, and proves developer IllFonic has spared no efforts to make a viscerally realistic game
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.dualshockers.com/halloween-the-game-banned-on-playstation-japan-visceral-violence-and-nudity/
