Hyper Universe is an upcoming side scrolling MOBA that has entered Steam Early Access recently
and it hopes to be the next big thing to put a dent in the influential MOBA market, aside
competitors such as League of Legends.
The title is developed by the Korean studio CWAVESOFT and is being published and localized
in the West by Nexon America, publishers of titles such as MapleStory.
Nexon recently announced that the Western version of the game would be receiving various
changes and that they will continue to make changes like this as it's updated with new
content.
Over on the official forum, a rep explained: "In alpha, there was a pretty hot debate in
a forum thread (which ended up being our longest forum thread for alpha) about how the females
are presented in the game, 5 forum pages later a few people agreed that a compromise between
super busty/skimpy and covering up might be for the best.
This is what we are attempting to do.
We want to keep the appeal of the female characters (and males for that matter!) while not offending
anyone.
We want to keep the artist's integrity in-check, but make the game inviting to not only play,
but watch as well.
The changes so far have been pretty minimal, mainly focused on reducing chest size a little
bit, making the physics a bit more realistic, and slightly covering up chests to not reveal
as much bust line.
This is going to be a case-by-case thing.
Not every Hyper and skin in the future will get this treatment.
All-in-all, we want to keep the general designs of the current Hypers and skins, so if modifications
are made in the future they will likely go the way of what you already have seen - slightly
more covering shirts/tunics and reduced breast size."
So, as mentioned, so far several of the female characters' chests have been reduced, as well
as outfit and physic changes.
Additionally, Nexon will continue to make changes to certain characters, as new ones
are released in future.
The company has spoken more about why they are making these changes in another post,
this time, on the Steam forum.
To quote: "I implore everyone to read the original thread
on the official forums regarding censorship.
If you pay attention, as some others have quoted, the changes were more so to make the
female's chest areas look more human and, well, a bit less ridiculous.
Some of the females are a bit more modest in size and clothes compared to other versions
of the game.
We had complaints when we were at PAX South, in Alpha, and Closed Beta hence the decision
to do what we did, without going overboard and giving every character a turtleneck sweater.
There are hard and thoughtful reasonings behind what we did - we do not want Hyper Universe
to come off as a "quick cash scheme", as we want to support it in the long term future.
Some thoughts we took into consideration was potential broadcasting and tournament streams
where some Hypers may make viewers feel uncomfortable or questionable to watch due to various reasons.
Overall, these changes do not detract from the gameplay nor the art in the game.
I would also say that speculating about future Hypers being censored is nearly worthless
until they release or their art is shown for this region - especially regarding a certain
succubus.
" From these statements, Nexon has expressed
that this decision was carefully thought out and that it was due to complaints from a portion
of players during the alpha and beta.
They have explained that this decision was done to try and appeal to as many people as
possible and have made it clear that this is a long term plan that they will be implementing
to the Western version of the game.
These changes have naturally caused new complaints, though, this time from players who believe
the game should remain the same as in Korea.
However, Nexon still feels that the game in this state will appeal to more people and
that is why these changes were made to Hyper Universe.
It's also worth pointing out that a player has created a mod that restores some of the
original artwork, although, it doesn't currently restore all of artwork, nor does it restore
the changes to things like the chest physics.
Additionally, with the game planned to continue to receive edits for its long-term future,
mods such as this will need to be continually updated to keep up with the changes.
For reference, the Korean version of the game already has many extra characters than the
West does and, as Nexon has confirmed, players should expect changes to some of these when
they are eventually released in the West, alongside any new characters.
From other posts over on the forums, it also appears Nexon stand by this decision and will
not be changing their mind.
But, if things do change or for any other big updates, Censored Gaming will be sure
to keep you up to date.
Until next time, thank you for watching.