Resident Evil Requiem is available worldwide and fans have been flocking to the game following its launch late last week. While there has been a ton of praise for the title from critics and fans alike, there has been some considerable pushback on the experience from players in Japan due to one specific reason.
Resident Evil Requiem is quite a gory game, with blood and guts flying in copious amounts. While the Resident Evil series has always been a bloody one, Requiem definitely cranks things up a notch, and it seems like what the game offers in terms of violence was just too much for Japanese censorship bodies to handle.
While Resident Evil Requiem remains uncensored in most regions (including the U.S.), players in Japan have taken to social media to complain about the rather aggressive censorship tactics. No matter the platform players pick the game up for in Japan, they’ll be greeted with black censorship boxes that cover up content deemed to be too gruesome. As you could imagine, with a game as violent as Resident Evil Requiem, the black boxes pop up quite frequently.
There’s been no word from Capcom on any changes to this approach, so it seems players in Japan are stuck with this situation. It’s especially disappointing when you consider that previous Resident Evil games in Japan managed to handle censorship differently, with blood color being changed or certain moves/scenes being cut altogether. While the black box approach might be better than cutting content completely, many users feel the overt visual censorship is completely immersion-breaking.