Sadly, I don't think that's likely to happen.

Going by the worst possibility where the contents are no longer in the assets instead of just being skipped over, someone would need to dump the Switch version of the game, reverse engineer and decrypt it, find which files and scripts go where, reverse engineer and decrypt the PC version as well, inject the missing files and scripts, compile the game again and hope nothing breaks.

And that's on a somewhat niche game. Most people with the skill to do it wouldn't find the effort worthy it.

Sounds like a ROMhack project that would happen a decade from now. It is disappointing that companies keep insisting on making potential customers become buccaneers to have a complete product.

I don't have a lot of hope honestly, but the fact that they say "we had to remove" and not "it wasn't present on the version we received" make me think it was present at one point and then disabled. So there is a slight chance that the code and assets are here and it is just disabled.

So in other words, this release will be censored garbage, just like myself and others have been correctly saying for weeks.

And that's a BS excuse that Ghostlight gave too. The Switch release is 100% uncensored. There is no reason why they couldn't have made a PC release also be 100% uncensored too.

Why are they hiding what the alleged "circumstances" are instead of fully disclosing them? Because those "circumstances" are BS that won't hold up to scrutiny, that's why.

I'm boycotting this game (even though I'm a fan of this series specifically and of Compile Heart games in general, and I definitely would have bought MS 2 if it were uncensored) and all future Ghostlight releases.

I hope most others do as well. Otherwise, if you buy this censored crap, then you are just rewarding them for butchering the game, and encouraging further censorship in future games too.

Why would they intentionally censor something on PC when they already released it uncensored on Switch? That doesn't make sense...

Anyone familiar with Steam knows that Valve is very capable of forcing developers to censor a game. I know that for a fact. I've even seen Valve mark games that have been rated "M" by the ESRB as "Adult Only" titles because they have content they don't like. Why would a game that is rated "M", have the exact same content that is on consoles need to be flagged as Adult Only on Steam? No reason, except Valve forcing censorship on developers and intentionally sabotaging games they don't like.

Mary Skelter 2 was released uncensored in Australia on Switch with an R18+ rating, which happens to be the same the Atelier games tend to get. So we really can't be blamed for this one. Its more likely to be on Valve for this one with it flowing over to the GOG release, since Valve has been all over the shop when it comes to refusing releases.

Such a shame. Well off the wishlist this goes, especially since I’ve heard this causes issues in the PS4 version since the game expects those parts removed to still be there. Big nope from me.

Since the publisher is going to release the censored version, I'll most likely pass on the game.

Doesn't matter what they removed/altered, I don't want to play a butchered version.

A statement from presumably the CM of Ghostlight Ltd. over at Steam: Yeah, I'm definitely passing on this game. At least be honest about the whole thing and don't come up with lazy excuses..

Do you know what sorts of problems this causes?

Where does the Steam store page list MS 2 as being "AO"? I"m not seeing it when I browse the page prior to writing this post.

As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that Valve "forced censorship" on Ghostlight for MS 2.

And MS 1 is on Steam (and GOG) 100% uncensored, with the exact same kind of content which has now been censored in MS 2.

So, the assertion that Valve is the catalyst for the censorship of MS 2 on PC is not logical, since if Valve wanted to censor this kind of content, then they would also be censoring MS 1 equally so...but yet, they do not.

Bugs, glitches and crashes. It apparently requires far more grinding than normal. I've heard that the Chinese version is utterly unplayable without a fanmade patch that restores all the censored content - and the developers outright refuse to fix it themselves.

I do hear they are porting and censoring the switch version. So maybe it won't have the PS4 bugs. Still gonna skip this though.

While I am anti-censorship, if this is the only thing that was dropped, I will accept this loss and buy the game anyway. It is, after all, one feature of the first game I never used except to try it out: I finished the game, including the post-game content, without it. On the one hand, doing so partially validates the censorship, but on the other hand, boycotting the game does no good. Boycotts in general are worthless if they don't generate a media frenzy. Not enough people care about a game like this to generate such a frenzy.

You're not reading what I said. Where did I ever mention it was MS 2 that was listed as "AO" on Steam?

Everything you said could go the other way also. Valve being the catalyst for this censorship is illogical, as you say, because if Valve wanted to censor this kind of content then they would have also with MS 1.

Well, the same thing could be said about Ghostlight and the fact that it's release uncensored on the Switch. Ghostlight are the ones who came out and pointed the finger at someone else. You can either take their word for it or not.

Would it be on Switch uncensored if it was?