In Western eyes, Japan is a bit particular when it comes to censorship. In the land of the rising sun one can find manga and anime ultra-charged with violence, but when it comes to video games, the landscape changes a lot towards a much more restrictive one. Due to this paradoxical situation, Striking Distance Studio has made the decision to cancel the Japanese version of The Callisto Protocolone of the survival horror that is arousing the most expectation.
At this point it goes without saying that The Callisto Protocol is an action survival horror video game coming from at least part of the team that once worked on the original Dead Space. In fact, the similarities between both titles are so evident that many perceive The Callisto Protocol as a Dead Space without the brand, although the first seems to delve into aspects such as horror while adding some elements of stealth and other details taken from the first The Evil Within, whose influence is very palpable in the trailers and gameplays that have been published so far.
If The Callisto Protocol delves into horror and has taken as its basis a title that in itself stands out a lot for its gore, the result is that the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (ZERO)organization that regulates and classifies content aimed at entertainment in Japan, has decided that the Striking Distance Studios game doesn’t make the cut because it doesn’t meet their standards when it comes to things like blood and body horror. Put more simply, The Callisto Protocol is so violent to Japan’s age rating authority that it cannot be marketed in its current state (at least to the general public).
Striking Distance Studios could censor the game to fit CERO’s demands, but the developer has argued that this would spoil the experience and what it wants to transmit, so it has decided to be more drastic and directly cancel the Japanese version of The Callisto Protocol. Of course, Japanese players can pull the international versions and those of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series are not blocked by region.
It is curious to see that Japan, a country that definitively made survival horror take off in the 90s of the last century, has such strict rules when it comes to censoring video games, but that’s the way things are. In fact, two versions of Resident Evil 2 remake were released there at the time, one heavily censored and the other apparently less censored targeting the 18+ audience. Other sagas such as Call of Duty have also been censored to be marketed normally in Japan.
