Just like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the new Dying Light has been forced to undergo censorship in a market where sales aren’t expected to be high. Dying Light: The Beast arrives in Japan stripped of nudity and toned-down gore, even though it received CERO’s strictest rating, CERO Z.

Do you enjoy games with heavy doses of graphic violence? Then chances are you’ve been following the launch of Dying Light: The Beast, a title whose gore once again tests the regulatory standards across different regions. Techland’s open-world release hit stores just days ago, and while most of the world is playing the full experience, Japan’s tolerance for explicit violence and sexual content is far lower. That has led to adjustments in this version.

Dying Light: The Beast – Censored for Japan

Japan remains one of the strictest territories when it comes to violent depictions, which means censorship and locally adjusted versions are a common occurrence. This isn’t a first: the country has a long history of heavy regulation around violent video games. As reported by Automaton, the Japanese edition of Dying Light: The Beast has been altered to comply with the rules set by CERO, the nation’s rating board.

As a result, Japan’s version of the game reduces the portrayal of gore, removes nudity, and alters the models of some infected female characters. What’s striking is that these restrictions apply to both the PlayStation 5 and Steam editions, even though PC releases don’t technically require a CERO rating to go on sale in the country. This suggests Techland wanted to keep everything aligned and avoid discrepancies between platforms.

This falls in line with recent cases involving the Japanese regulator, which has previously forced developers to alter games or cancel releases altogether—like what happened with Dead Space and The Callisto Protocol—when the necessary changes conflicted with creative intent. Earlier this year, Assassin’s Creed Shadows had to tone down its dismemberment depictions, while Baldur’s Gate 3, 2023’s Game of the Year, censored nudity using visual workarounds. Even with its CERO Z classification, Dying Light: The Beast still had portions of its “heightened brutality” censored to meet Japan’s regulatory requirements.

Source: 3djuegos