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Call of Duty: Black Ops edited for Japanese audience

by Richard Mitchell on Nov 3rd 2010 6:40PM

Square Enix announced today that some changes have been made to the Japanese localized version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. All dubbed copies of the PC and console versions will see swastikas replaced with the Iron Cross in zombie mode. Strangely, the subtitled version of the game, which will be released prior to the dubbed version, will retain the swastikas.

1UP notes that Square Enix announced other cuts to all versions of the game last month, namely scenes of dismemberment and scenes of extreme violence during an interrogation. Furthermore, the company issued an apology as part of today's statement, as it previously stated that the zombie mode would not be altered from the US version.

Via: 1UP
Source: Square Enix (Japanese)

Tags: Activision, Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops, Japan, microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, Treyarch, xbox

Reader Comments (38)

Not to be...culturally insensitive but did they censor "Call of Duty: World at War"?

@listerfeend

Does anything Square Enix does make sense any more?

@listerfeend Japanese players playing as Americans who are shooting Japanese soldiers... Yeah, sure, they would TOTALLY release that in Japan. Good thinking!

@listerfeend

Well, WoW wasn't even released in Japan.

Sorry, I meant WaW, not WoW.

Japanese always get the worst part of the cookie from western development.

I think Germany gets the worst. Of course, that's because of local laws.

When you gib someone in TF2 in the German version, they explode into confetti, springs, alarm clocks, cheeseburgers, and balloon animals.

@Drakkenfyre

Whoa. You're saying exploding "into confetti, springs, alarm clocks, cheeseburgers, and balloon animals" is a bad thing???

@TheyDidItFirst Yeah, honestly I have sillygibs enabled for me all the time because it's so entertaining!

@Drakkenfyre

wait... is this seriously true? crap... that sounds effing AWESOME! much better than ambiguous meat chunks imo.

Censorship.

Censorship.

Censorship.

The word rings in my ears recently. But after the EMA doing so awesome in court yesterday, I think the ringing will soon stop. (That court summary was really interesting, by the way.)

/somewhat off-topic

Dont Japanese celebrate Nazis in their pop culture? I am thinking of ATLUS games, Operation Darkness just off the top of my head. They love Nazis. Hell they probably allied with them just because they swooned over their uniforms.

@Jack Kevorkian
I'm German, don't like the Nazi's goals but damn, the uniforms are sexy. I'd surely commit cloth-genocide so everyone will wear those uniforms on the world!

... Wait, that does sound wrong. Forget what I said. -punishes self-

@TachiFoxy

I'm a half German and also agree that the uniforms were quite striking. See, the trick is to sneak 'em into a fashion show...

Also, your internet name (minus the foxy) is the same as my only real gaming buddy. Cool stuff.

@Reploid as much as I hate a Nazi I will admit that they had the last great uniforms in modern warfare. They still have the ability to strike fear. And the leather...LEATHER EVERYWHERE!

@Jack Kevorkian
i never heard of Operation Darkness till you mentioned it, but I just looked it up and the villains of the game are Nazis. So i don't know what you mean by "celebrating the Nazis."

@Reploid
You don't happen to use Steam, huh? o.o

Thank you Square Enix, because the worst thing about Nazis was their terrible taste in graphic design.

@That Burning Sensation

Except the fact that the Nazi's didn't "design" the Swastika, they just adapted it.

@MystileArmor

Three things:

First, it was a joke.

Second, I never said they designed anything, having "good taste" in something doesn't mean you made it.

Third, I know they didn't design the swastika. It is a very common symbol in ancient culture. It can be found in Europe and even further back in Asia (granted in different directions).

Anyone else kinda wanna see the dismemberment/extreme violence scenes now?

@DanielTobey
Actually no..... I prefer my games without a lot of gore........

Good thing anime doesn't have dismemberment and scenes of extreme violence, cause that would really be f'ed up.

*puts in Akira DVD*

@That Burning Sensation

is that the extent of your knowledge of gore in anime? cuz thats pretty tame compared to a lot of other (and newer) anime out there. not putting you down, just think that there may be better (but perhaps less well known) examples out there.

@KiraXD

Guyver also comes to mind or maybe Ninja Scroll. I admit, not particularly an anime fan; unless of corpse it has mechs, which actually makes me a fan of giant robots really.

@Noksukow

Elfen Lied anyone?

@That Burning Sensation

what you did there. i see it.

Does it really matter? Nobody but expats are going to buy this in Japan.

Hitler was in a dragonball z movie once! He saw them go super saiyan and he almost pooped himself. Look it up on YouTube "Hitler in dbz"

I think the reason they took the swastika out is because in japan the symbol backwards(the original symbol) is a sign of good luck I believe, correct me if I'm wrong... Makes little sense to censor but that's all I can think of...

Hetalia: Axis Powers is okay, but you can't show a swastika? Odd.

They should have left the swasitkas in, and then mosaic blurred them like porn. Not that I'd...know anything about that....

I dont understand?!

The Japanese were 'Allied' with the Nazis!

Not only that but I thought the only thing that was unacceptable in Japanese media was the hairy Penis... Hence all the tentacles...

Just me? Im right, right?

Censorship, as far as I know is almost non existent.

Germany is the worst for self-censorship though if Schwarzenegger gets his way we'd have those kind of rules here as well.

Of course he had no problem appearing in "Expendables", a movie in which most of a country got slaughtered violently.

did activision add anime character maps and tentacle monsters?

Wha- !? I only killed them cause they were Nazi's. Looks like I'm going to spend the match trying to catch one and have a neighborly conversation. We'll see how that goes...

somehow wehrmarct zombies doesnt have the same ring to it

Man am I ever proud to be an American.

Countries aligned with the Axis during WW2 sure are silly about that swastika. Germany, Japan...we forgive you already. They're just texture maps.

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