Insomniac Games’ next title is unlikely to be released in the region at the same time as elsewhere.

Censors in Islamic countries in the Middle East will likely have slammed Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, with gamers in several countries reporting that they cannot pre-order the PlayStation 5 game. According to Reddit, several countries in the Middle East are affected, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. If you look at two sites from the region concerned, they say that the game is due to be released on October 20, but no release date has been decided yet.

This sentence, therefore, means that Sony Interactive Entertainment has run into problems, as the VGC has reported that Insomniac Games’ game does not comply with local rules by default, so the studio will have to take extra time to censor the content in question (and who knows what the elements are that cannot comply with the Quran’s conditions from a religious point of view).

It is not Sony’s first rodeo in the Middle East, as the animated film Spider-Man: Through the Spider-Verse was banned in the UAE because it did not comply with local censorship laws, partly due to a pro-transgender poster that popped up in the background, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And the PlayStation 5 exclusive (okay, timed exclusive…) Final Fantasy XVI was banned in Saudi Arabia after Square Enix refused to change the game to comply with censorship requirements.

So at the moment, the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 in Islamic countries is highly questionable (as it’s not only in the Middle East that this could be a problem, but in many territories as well) unless Insomniac Games makes the necessary changes to the game. They will probably be willing to make the changes because, above them, Sony certainly sees money as their primary goal, not the integrity of the game.

Source: VGC