Summary
- Ubisoft confirms Far Cry 4 nudity censorship was a mistake and has been resolved.
- The censorship mishap stemmed from the Japanese version's strict nudity laws applying globally.
- Players' concerns about unexpected censorship changes in games were addressed by Ubisoft.
Far Cry 4 recently made news regarding a peculiar censorship update to the PC version of the game that drew the attention of long-time fans around the globe. This is a series that famously doesn’t shy away from the taboo, so it surprised players to receive an update on this decade-old game that drastically changed some familiar aspects. As it turns out, this may have all just been a big misunderstanding, but it didn’t stop theories from running wild about why Ubisoft implemented this change to Far Cry 4 in the first place.
Ubisoft has since confirmed that the update in question “was a mistake” and has been resolved. Players can continue to play the game as it was intended. Still, it left fans scratching their heads, as questions came up about how this update could have happened in the first place. It also brought up serious questions about what an update of this nature could mean for the future of censorship in video games.
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Far Cry 4 Update “Mistakenly” Censored Nudity
The recent Far Cry 4 debacle centered around an update that, among other things, added bras and loincloths where there weren’t any before. In other words, the nudity was completely erased from Far Cry 4. This confused fans around the world, as Far Cry 4 was already a decade-old game in a franchise that is well-known for its brazen approach to storytelling, as well as its lax approach to nudity.
A Ubisoft representative took to Reddit to assure fans this was not meant to happen. What ended up happening was that the Japanese version of the game – which has always censored nudity, thanks to Japan’s strict censorship laws around video games – was accidentally applied to all versions of the game for everyone around the globe. Though the accident has been resolved, it deserves some explanation for players who may not understand why this happened to begin with.
Games will often censor parts of their content in order to be released in specific global regions. In Japan’s case, they require that games contain no nudity, or, if they do, that the nudity in question be censored. Developers tend to work around this rule by implementing changes – such as clothes – for those region-specific audiences. While these adjustments don’t necessarily change the game in any major way, they can be jarring for audiences who don’t abide by these rules, especially if those rules end up changing a game they know, love, and have been playing for over a decade.
Why Censorship in Far Cry 4 Caused Controversy
Censorship can be concerning for players when it comes out of the blue. In this case, it begged the question of whether global audiences were suddenly subject to strict rules that had never before applied to them. It’s a brave new world, and the game is changing. It wouldn’t be extraordinary for audiences to assume that this brave new world was changing their game, too. Fortunately, Ubisoft has made clear that this was never supposed to happen, and it worked to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Global fans can once again experience Far Cry 4 on PC, just as the developers intended.
While there is a place for a reasoned discussion about the place of censorship in video games, this turns out not to be one of those places. It was an honest mishap of one region’s game data briefly becoming the standard game data for all players. The best that could come of this has already happened: the company admitted to its mistake, apologized for it, and immediately corrected it. As such, no harm was done, and fans can rest assured this is not some hidden change to the studio's policy for future games.
Far Cry 4
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 84 /100 Critics Rec: 88%
- Released
- November 18, 2014
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal
- Publisher(s)
- Ubisoft
- Engine
- cryengine
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Far Cry
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Open-World
