Red Dead Redemption 2 is not a game for kids
It is a long, complicated adventure, with deliberately slow, considered gameplay, and a lot of thematic moral ambiguity.
Oh, and it is also full of violence and murder and brothels and stuff.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is rated 18 in the UK, and Mature 17+ in the US. It’s what you would expect for a game that is basically Grand Theft Auto, only in a time with even looser morals.
It has been released uncensored over here, but that’s not the case in Japan, where the game has faced a a certain amount of censorship. The game received the highest ‘Z’ rating from Japan’s Cero ratings system, but still required some content to be removed – as detailed in a video from Censored Gaming.
Violence is the key thing removed. For instance, if you shoot at a dead body, it will be dismembered in gory fashion – whereas in the Japanese version, the body parts just disappear.
One mission, that involves the player tracking a serial killer, is also altered – in the Western version, you see corpses missing body parts, whereas in Japan, they have all their limbs intact.
Sexual content is also toned down. In the brothel section of the game, you can stumble in on clients in, er, compromising situations with nearly-naked girls. But in Japan, they are fully clothed.
Watch the full video for a few more examples.
