Assassin’s Creed Shadows Will Be Censored in Japan

While the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been given a CERO rating of Z in Japan, marking at as a game that isn’t suitable for anyone under the age of 18 to play, the game will still see some censorship in the country.

Ubisoft confirmed this with a post on its Japanese X account, stating that there will be differences in the Japanese version of Assassin’s Creed Shadows when compared to its international release. The company has said that these changes were made in order to comply with CERO’s regulations.

“Regarding Assassin’s Creed: Shadows (CERO: Z), there are some differences in the in-game content of the version sold in Japan in order to comply with the regulations of the reviewing organization,” reads a translation of Ubisoft’s statement.

Interestingly while the international release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows will allow players to enable or disable dismemberment in the game, the Japanese version will not feature the option at all, instead locking the game into having no dismemberment at all.

“The option to switch dismemberment on and off has been removed from the game settings, and now dismembering the heads and limbs of enemies while playing is permanently disabled. The way severed body parts are depicted has also been changed.”

With the March 20 release date of Assassin’s Creed Shadows looming ever closer, the studio has been revealing quite a few details about the title. More recently, associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois revealed that one of the two playable protagonists, Yasuke, will not have any assassin abilities at all. This includes the iconic Eagle Vision. Instead, Yasuke’s status as an outsider to Feudal Japan and the assassins will serve as a unique perspective both in terms of the story as well as gameplay.

Ubisoft also recently revealed that the reason for the latest delay which pushed the game back to its March release was because the development team needed more time to polish things up. One key area which needed polishing was how the game’s parkour mechanics interacted with the unique shapes of the roofs on buildings from Feudal Japan.

The game is also attempting to avoid the open-world map bloat that Ubisoft has seen some criticism for. Stemming from the development team’s trip to Japan for research, the game will allow players to explore the world on their on terms, instead of throwing up new points of interests every 50 meters.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out some of the newly-revealed accessibility options and features that the title will ship with. These features include colourblind options, as well as a host of other features that will allow just about anyone to play the game.

It will be coming out alongside the Animus Hub, which will act as the main home for future titles in the franchise. It is worth noting that only games from Assassin’s Creed Origins onwards will be supported in the Animus Hub, and older titles will be left as they currently are.