In the eyes of the West, Japan is a bit odd when it comes to censorship. In the land of the rising sun, you’ll find manga and anime ultra-charged with violence, but when it comes to video games, the landscape is changing a lot towards a much more restrictive one. Because of this paradoxical situation, Striking Distance Studio decided to cancel the Japanese version of the Callisto protocolone of the survival horrors that raises the most expectations.

At this point, it goes without saying that The Callisto Protocol is an action survival horror video game coming from at least part of the team that once worked on the original Dead Space. In fact, the similarities between the two titles are so evident that many see The Callisto Protocol as Dead Space without the brand, even though the former seems to delve into aspects like horror, adding some stealth elements and other details taken from the first The Evil Within, whose influence is very noticeable in the trailers and gameplays published so far.

If Callisto Protocol dives into horror and takes as its basis a title that itself stands out a lot with its gore, the result is that Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (ZERO)the organization that regulates and classifies entertainment content in Japan has decided that Striking Distance Studios’ game doesn’t make the cut because it doesn’t meet their standards for things like flesh and blood horror. Simply put, the Callisto protocol is so violent to Japan’s age rating agency that it cannot be sold (at least to the general public) in its current state.

Striking Distance Studios could have censored the game to meet CERO’s requirements, but the developer claimed that it would spoil the experience and what he wanted to convey, so he decided to be more drastic and outright cancel the Japanese version of the Callisto protocol. Of course, Japanese players can download the international versions, and the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions are not region-locked.

It’s strange to see Japan, the country that definitely started survival horror in the 1990s, have such strict rules when it comes to video game censorship, but that’s the way things are. In fact, there were two versions of the Resident Evil 2 remake released at the time, one heavily censored and the other apparently less censored aimed at an 18+ audience. Other sagas such as Call of Duty were also censored in order to be sold normally in Japan.