While many games most games are not banned from the US and Canada, there’s many other
countries that prevent certain controversial games from breaching their borders and ending
up in the hands of gamers.
Today we’re taking a look at a few of the games that have been banned, from games that
feature gratuitous violence and sex, to others that one may not presume would ever be prohibited.
So let’s jump in to our list of top 10 video games that are banned in countries around
the world.
10 GTA Franchise Let’s start off this list with an obvious
one.
Rockstar’s staple franchise Grand Theft Auto has always been a hot topic when it comes
to violence in video games.
Regardless of how well it’s done globally, especially in the US and the UK, there’s
still several countries who have banned the game, and the series all together, due to
its violence, sexual themes, depiction of substance abuse and cruelty.
In some cases, it’s ban has been lifted, like in South Korea.
It’s banned in china for being unsuitable for children.
And sometimes it’s banned for more absurd reasons; GTA Episodes from Liberty City was
banned in parts of Brazil for using a Brazilian composers music without proper permissions,
although the ban was lifted in 2012.
9 Homefront Homefront is a game that takes place in a
dystopian USA, in which a united Korea - south and north - have been united by the son of
Kim Jong Il.
It’s not explicitly said it’s Kim Jong Un, but that’s pretty much what the game
hints at.
Anyway, the united Korea invades.
So, naturally, it was banned by South Korea, for obvious reasons; to prevent trouble from
North Korea.
It was also edited in Japan to remove all mention of Kim Jong Il and North Korea.
8 Injustice: Gods Among Us Most would initially think that a game about
superheroes wouldn’t be banned.
Despite having a few fascist vibes, the game has minimal gratuitous violence, and would
be considered to be more so on the wholesome side of contemporary video games.
Yet it was still banned in the United Arab Emirates.
Despite being marketed as Injustice The Mighty Among Us, the game was still banned because
of the case and disc packaging being identical to that of the European release, in which
the word God is still in the title.
It’s seen as blasphemy.
Eventually, the ban was lifted.
7 God of War series Banned in the United Arab Emirates.
No surprise there, considering our last number.
But aside from being banned because of it’s use of the word God, the game was also prohibited
because of it’s depiction of Greek deities in the game.
Players are encouraged to kill the gods, and the games are chalk full of sex scenes, some
of which include gods, too.
6 Rapelay We featured this game recently on our list
of video games that went too far.
Essentially, it’s a game from Japanese developer Illusion in which players take on the role
of a man who sexually harasses and then rapes and demoralizes a mother and her two daughters.
It’s fucked up.
So of course it received a ton of controversy, leading to multiple bans.
Argentina, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and so on.
The game has been removed from Amazon.com and can no longer be purchased, which occurred
three years after it’s initial release.
5 Manhunt 2 Manhunt 2 has been banned in United Kingdom,
Ireland, New Zealand (who banned both the first and second Manhunt game).
For the UK, it was specifically the uncut version of the game that didn’t make their
standards, although it was allowed to be sold after an appeal was made in spite of a successful
challenge to that ruling.
For New Zealand, the game was banned for it’s graphic violence and depictions of cruelty.
There was a movement in Italy to have the game censored due to gratuitous violence and
excessive cruelty, but it was never carried out.
4 Fallout Franchise Several games within the Fallout franchise
have been banned or edited in various counties.
Fallout New Vegas is banned from the United Arab Emirates due to gambling and sexual themes.
And Fallout 3 was edited in Japan because of the Power of the Atom mission which gives
you the option to nuke Megaton.
Obviously because of historical events and Hiroshima, the topic is pretty damn sensitive,
leading developers to rename the Fat Man weapon to the Nuka Launcher.
3 Mass Effect Banned in Singapore due to “a homosexual
encounter between a feminine alien and female human.”
The ban was later lifted and the title rated as M18.
Generally Singapore rarely bans games, but rather rates them under M18 if they contact
full frontal nudity or strong graphic violence.
In addition to Mass Effect, Half Life and The Darkness were also banned but then lifted,
due to violence rather than lgbtq content.
The game’s two sequels were also banned in the United Arab Emirates, and many speculate
it was due to the homosexual content.
2 Mega Man 5 Mega Man is not a franchise that you’d ever
think would be banned in general.
But that isn’t the case in Vietnam, where Mega Man 5 is banned because of a certain
boss in the game - Napalm Man - who is considered incredibly offensive.
Which makes perfect sense, if you take into account the use of napalm by the US in the
Vietnam war.
Despite this, it’s reported that Chinese bootleg versions of the game are still widespread
available in the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPggp8Ah5aQ
1 Pokemon Go Pokemon Go was a massive craze internationally.
Letting players travel around the real world and catch pokemon was incredibly appealing,
so it’s not hard to buy into it’s popularity.
In some cases, the game even helped players with their mental health, with many gamers
who had depression speaking out about how the game was beneficial in their coping.
Despite all of this, the game did raise some issues, with stories arising of people carelessly
trespassing, walking off cliffs, and getting up to other shenanigans, all to catch em all.
A player in France was actually arrested for straying onto a military base while pursuing
a Pokemon.
Iran banned the game due to unspecified security reasons.
Mayalasia banned it, too, because the game “promoted the search for power which leads
to gaming and safety issues”, but this ban was lifted soon after due to a massive backlash
on social media, which led to the game modifying it’s security measures in order to make
it more acceptable.
There we have it friends!
Which of these games surprised you?
And what games did we not include on this list are you surprised aren’t banned?
Let us know in those comments below.
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In the meantime, thanks for watching!
I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 gaming.
I’ll catch you all in the next one.