I think game censorship doesn’t belong in this day and age anymore.I still remember when i had to download blood patches and content patches to play the original game.But in germany people still get the censored version of dying light or even here we get the censored version from lust of beyond.It’s basically not the full game and the version which developers imagined.If someone gets offended by explicit content than they shouldn’t buy the game an alternative way would be if there is a regulator where you can decide what you want to see and what not…. in the end as an adult you shouldn’t have to deal with this

Unfortunately, being offended is the default state of mind of a very vocal part of the people, so we're stuck with it.

Yeah, some people simply can't stand the idea of others enjoying something they personally do not and will go out of their way to prevent others from enjoying it under the guise of "morality" and "protection". Having an OPTION for a censored/milder content is fine. Forcing it on everyone without exception, is not. Age ratings are there for a reason. And any reasonable adult should simply not consume something that is not to their liking instead of crying about how they dislike it everywhere.

All this unfortunately leads to the worst kind of censorship - the self censorship. Where creators pre-emptively "sanitize" their content (either by themselves or publisher's demands) so that it doesn't "offend" anyone and aims at the (I hate the term...) "wider audience". And in many cases, creators will simply opt for making a "milder" version, because creating 2 versions costs development time and resources. The worst thing about this kind of censorship is that it's pretty much impossible to fight it, due to it happening behind closed doors during the development process and before release.

And this is not anything new too. Titan Quest development team for example (2006) had strict instructions and demands from the publisher about how "accessible" the game should be.

Demands like "There must be no blood", "Monsters and enemies must appear mindless and unintelligent", "It must not be possible to fight humans" (You'll notice there are absolutely no human enemies in TQ+IT). Even something like the inclusion of the Spirit mastery was a thing that had to be actively fought for, because the publisher had complaints about it being "too dark and necromancy-like". All this came to light years after release where a person from the development team shared this info on a forum (Grim Dawn I think) about how draconic the publisher's demands were and how it limited their vision and creativity. Sadly, the thread is gone now, but I have the entire post copied on my PC if anyone is interested. It's pretty lengthy so not gonna post it here but trust me, it is some of the most eye-rolling stuff you've ever seen.

Honestly, the RPG genre needs more games where you can have a party of evil monsters, and instead of dark, subterranean caves, the dungeons are the castles and lands where the good races live. Even better if you can have evil classes like demon summoning, necromancy, witchcraft etc.