Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered has been censored on consoles in Japan, Suda51 confirms

The upcoming remaster of Shadows of the Damned has been censored on consoles in Japan, co-creator Suda51 has confirmed.

The original version of the game, released in 2011, had to be censored in Japan to appease the ratings board CERO.

Now in an interview with GameSpark, Suda confirmed that the upcoming Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered has once again been censored in Japan, but only on consoles (since the PC version doesn’t have to pass through CERO).

“We had to prepare two versions of the game, which is a real challenge,” he explained. “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.”

In the same interview, Suda’s co-creator Shinji Mikami expressed his frustration at the ratings process in Japan, claiming that CERO don’t understand the process of playing video games.

“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,” he said.

Suda added: “If regional restictions are imposed, we have no choice but to adhere to them, but I always wonder what the player thinks about it. For example, if a lot of people buy the PC version on Steam because they want to play it without restrictions, it would be a bit sad, considering it’s available on a variety of platforms.

“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.”

Mikami also brought up the situation with the original 2008 version of Dead Space, which was banned in Japan after CERO refused to give it a rating, explaining that players had to import it if they wanted to play it.

“At the time I had the opportunity to talk to people at the development studio in the US,” Mikami recalls. “What I still remember vividly is that some of them were in tears, saying: ‘We worked so hard on this game, but we couldn’t get it released in Japan.'”

Earlier this year,EA Japan’s general manager Shaun Noguchi criticised CERO for what he believed were discrepancies in the way the Dead Space remake and Stellar Blade were rated.

Further reading

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EA Japan exec criticises Japanese rating board for banning Dead Space, but passing Stellar Blade

The gore that got Dead Space banned is similar in Stellar Blade, he argues

Like the original game, the remake of Dead Space was also banned in Japan, with Noguchi saying it was due to excessive gore. However, Stellar Blade was passed with a CERO D rating, which means it can’t be purchased by players under 17 without parental consent.

Posting a selection of screenshots from the Stellar Blade demo showing severed limbs with visible bones, and guts splattered on the floor, Noguchi claimed that CERO’s decision not to rate Dead Space was based on similarly graphic content.

“CERO, you said that our Dead Space was no good because the cross-section of damaged parts and internal organs were visible,” he wrote. “But here you can see both the cross-sections and insides, so I’m not convinced you are using CERO D.”