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The new spin-off in the Wolfenstein series, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, recently launched
worldwide for Xbox One, Windows, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.
Set twenty years after the last game, Youngblood, as its title suggests, sees protagonist BJ’s
twin daughters take centre stage as the game’s new heroes, as you once again set out to stop
a new nazi threat.
The Wolfenstein franchise is definitely no stranger to regional differences around the
world and this is something that has continued with the latest game.
And so, this video will be taking a look at these regional differences.
First up, we have Japan, which is one of the most dominant video game markets around the
world but is a region that is known for not being as particularly interested in FPS games
like Wolfesntein as the West is.
However, despite this, big AAA titles like Wolfenstein will often still be released and
localized for Japan and, despite not being as big as over in the West, they can also
sometimes see a fair amount of success.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood was released a little later in Japan that the rest of the world,
with it being launched on August 8th rather than July 26th.
Alongside the little later release, Bethesda Japan had previously informed fans that the
game would face some changes for the Japanese version, to tone down the game’s violence.
In this Tweet the publisher explained that, due to the limits of the Japanese rating system,
any corpse dismemberment will have to have the exposed textures darkened so that you
can’t see inside any open wounds.
They confirmed that no other changes would be made to the game and expressed that this
is something that couldn’t be avoided for the Japanese release.
Now that the game is out in Japan, we have been able to see the types of changes that
have been made and you can see an example on-screen now.
As shown in the comparison, which is from a scene early on in the game where the heroes
find and kill their first nazi, the violence remains the same with the exception of the
exposed neck texture as well as the separated chunk at the bottom left.
Like mentioned, these kind of details had to be made much darker and blackened out over
in Japan and this can be seen throughout the rest of the game.
Now, the game was given a Z rating in Japan, which is CERO’s, the Japanese rating system’s,
highest rating and means suitable for ages 18 years and over.
However, despite a Z rating being the highest rating – there are certain levels of depiction
that are still not allowed in games rated by the Japanese rating system.
These are rules that the rating system has decided on themselves due to, to quote, “healthy
ethical standards for society” and this is why changes like this can get made over
in Japan.
Next up we have a number of regions in the Middle East, where the game has not had changes
made but it’s instead been made completely unavailable to buy in the countries.
The Twitter user Tom Smith reported this to Censored Gaming earlier in the week, where
he expressed frustration over the game being completely IP blocked in his country of Israel.
Looking at the game’s SteamDB page confirms that the game has indeed been blocked in some
Middle Eastern regions and this is something that Bethesda has currently not been able
to provide fans with any explanation for.
Israel isn’t too known for video game censorship and fans feel that the game would be able
to be released in the country just fine and that this was a voluntary decision made by
the publishers.
In fact, the previous game was also not released in Israel which led to a group of fans to
protest this by creating a parody game called “Wolfenstäche: The New Censorship” which
involves you fighting a barrage of oversized sentient versions of Hitler’s moustache.
Speaking of Hitler’s moustache, that then leads us to the final country around the world
which faced some regional issues – this being Germany, which made headlines around
the world for the previous game, when it was discovered that the German versions removed
Hitler’s moustache in all scenes where he appears in the game.
This was due to the publishers trying to sanitize the game to try and appease the rules of the
German government that then prevented the use of “unconstitutional symbols” in games.
Alongside Hitler’s moustache, any Nazi iconography was also removed from the game, although,
curiously, the devs actually didn’t have to remove the moustache as this isn’t seen
as an “unconstitutional symbol”.
But this was likely a case of them being overly cautious with the German releases.
Hitler doesn’t appear in the new game and so there hasn’t been any moustache-related
news to report.
However, a notable thing happening following the release of the previous game, where, due
to the mass attention the German version received around the world – the German USK rating
system decided to ease up on their rules around these symbols in a way that would make things
more comparable to how movies are treated in the country.
You see, whilst the use of “unconstitutional symbols” is something that is banned by
the German government.
There is an exception clause for this, for cases where the symbols are used for things
like education and artistic purposes.
Movies are allowed to show the symbols in the country due to them being seen as an art
form.
Games however, have never been allowed to, with the German USK rating system automatically
refusing to rate any games containing these symbols.
But, with what happened with the previous game, the USK rating system formally announced
a change in policy, where games will now be allowed to be rated when containing this content
as long as the exception clause was seen as fulfilled, like in movies.
So, this change in policy has allowed Wolfesntein: Youngblood to be, for the first time in the
series history, released 100% uncut in Germany.
However, the news that the game was allowed to be released uncut occurred only a little
before the game was scheduled to be released and so Bethesda had to do something interesting
with the German releases.
As the censored German version was all ready to go, and they didn’t have much time to
implement an uncut version, the game has been released in two versions over in Germany.
Both are rated by the German USK rating system, but one of them removes all of the symbols,
whilst the other is dubbed the “International Version” and is the same as the English
versions.
However despite being an official German release, the International Version is literally the
same as the English versions and doesn’t have German voices or subtitles.
It’s very possible though, that for any future entries in the series, next time there
will be a fully uncut version that is fully translated into German too, now that the precedent
has been set with Youngblood’s release.
That’s not to say though that the German releases of the game hasn’t run into any
other issues though.
The uncut release of the game has been a highly significant event within the country but,
for some, they have believed that the International Version of the game was a too sensitive of
an issue.
Two of Germany’s biggest retail outlets, Media Markt and Saturn, have boycotted the
International Version of the game and will only sell the censored version.
They have said this was due to the title’s “sensitive content” and that any future
decision like this will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Furthermore, whilst there hasn’t been any official reasoning for this, the uncut version
of the game is also completely missing over on the Microsoft store meaning that those
wanting to pick up a digital copy are only able to get the censored release.
Competitors Sony, Nintendo and Valve however haven’t done this and have made both versions
of the game available for German fans.
Furthermore, the German branches of Gamestop have also for some reason decided to not sell
the International Version.
And so, all of this has meant that some gamers have run into a few unexpected issues trying
to pick up the International Version of the game, despite it being an official release
of the game that’s been approved by the German USK.
It remains to be seen what would have happened if the censored version didn’t exist for
retailers to sell instead, but of course this and all other matters revolving around regional
differences in video games is something that the channel will continue to keep a close
eye on.
If you wish to stay up to date on that and all other regional difference info then consider
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Until next time, thank you for watching.