Introduction
From subjecting small Japanese developers to a tortuous, censorious policy to treating its own first party studios terribly to not communicating with indie developers, Sony PlayStation just cannot stay out of the headlines without doing something incredibly foolish. All the way back in February, I wrote an article on speculation of Sony censoring violent content in the Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) video game. Here's an excerpt of what I wrote:
While Matsuyama's comments make it sound like Sony made progress in reeling back the censorship on violent content (Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 came out in 2016 while DBZ: Kakarot released in 2020), there is concern on whether Sony has reversed course with Kimetsu no Yaiba with the game's lack of blood relative to the anime. After all, Sony does have a history of demanding developers to remove content that do not adhere to their arbitrary standards. I highly recommend watching Censored Gaming's video on the "Sony Check".
At the time, there was no direct evidence of Sony censoring violent content. For some games like DBZ: Kakarot, the company was fine with the violence, so perhaps the concern was unfounded. However, recently, it was revealed that there is actual credibility to those censorship concerns and it came from an unlikely game: Doki Doki Literature Club!
*Possible spoilers for the game ahead. Read at your own risk.*
Doki Doki Literature Club! Gets Censored
To preface, Doki Doki Literature Club! is a visual novel game that originally released in 2017 on Itch.io and Steam. The game takes an unconventional approach to the visual novel genre by transforming what is seemingly a lighthearted dating simulator to a psychological horror game that frequently breaks the 4th wall.
The game received a lot of positive feedback and gained a large following. Fast forward to this year, an expanded version of the game, Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, launched on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and PC in June 30.
However, in the PlayStation versions, something was different from all the other versions.
On the left is what you would see in the Switch, Xbox, and PC versions. On the right is what you would see in the PS versions.
As you can see above, the character Yuri stabs herself with a knife. Of course, when inflicted with such a wound, she would bleed red blood. However, in the case of the PlayStation versions, the blood is censored out and replaced with this greenish gray blotch.
Closing Thoughts: Sony is a Massive Hypocrite
The developer in a blog post said that he was confident that the changes did not affect the "psychological effect" of the scene. Even so, this is incredibly unusual considering the amount of games on the PlayStation consoles that are far, far more violent than the picture above. In fact, one would consider Sony's demand for Team Salvato (the developer for Doki Doki Literature Club!) to censor the blood to be absolutely hypocritical.
Take The Last of US: Part II, for instance. In this "brutal" gameplay montage below, you will see lots and lots of blood, dismemberment, and flying guts.
A fair warning. It is quite brutal, so watch at your own risk!
The PlayStation consoles also have third party games such as Mortal Kombat that are just as violent and gory as TLOU2. So apparently, the violent content in those games are perfectly fine, but a stab wound in Doki Doki Literature Club! is an absolute no-go. I'm sorry, but in no way does this make any sense.
And I did double check the game's rating to see if perhaps it was rated T and Sony felt some of the content would be inappropriate for non-mature players. Well, it is rated M just like TLOU2.
I can't help, but wonder if Sony just has a massive hate boner against anime-styled games.
