South Park: The Stick Of Truth Censored In Europe?
Update: The censorship is all but confirmed as a Ubisoft representative has told Videogamer.com that “the decision is a market decision made by Ubisoft EMEA“.
If sources are to be believed from BT.com, Ubisoft’s forthcoming title South Park: The Stick of Truth which carries an 18 rating in the UK is to be allegedly censored by having certain scenes removed from the game in the European, Middle Eastern and African regions. Similar censorships have also already been made to the Australian version of the game.
It is believed that seven scenes of around twenty seconds each have been removed from the game, the decision to censor South Park: The Stick of Truth has been made by Ubisoft.
The scenes that have apparently been removed from the game are:
- A mini-game where a doctor is performing an abortion on the player.
- A mini-game where the player is performing an abortion on the character Randy.
- Five ‘anal probing’ scenes in which characters are ‘actively’ being probed.
Now shoot me if I’m out of line by saying this, but South Park has always been centred on controversial humour and has often crossed the line. I can understand why some of the above issues would cause great offence to some, but the likely truth is that those that will be offended are unlikely to ever buy the game anyway, let alone watch the TV series. Fans of South Park will know exactly what they’re letting themselves in for and would expect nothing less and I doubt these scenes would even their surprise fans.
I also find it odd that while the game is being censored for Europe and some other regions, the TV series is uncut (not that I’d ever want it to be). This is somewhat of a contradiction whichever way you think about it.
I’d be very interested in hearing opinions from fellow South Park fans on this alleged censorship and I for one am now very tempted to get this game as a North America import (as long as that one doesn’t get censored too). Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
South Park: The Stick of Truth will release for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on March 4th in North America and the 7th across Europe.