‘Shadows Of The Damned’ Creators Suda51 And Shinji Mikami Slam Video Game Censorship: “Those Who Do Not Play Games TryTo Prevent People From Enjoying The Game”
Like most players who actually care about video games and not just how they can use it as a platform to signal how good of a person they supposedly are, storied Shadows of the Damned creators Goichi ‘Suda51’ Suda and Shinji Mikami are not fans of the ongoing attempts – particularly those made by the Japanese government – to censor the medium.
Suda51, perhaps best known as the director of such titles as killer7, Lollipop Chainsaw, and the No More Heroes series, and Mikami, who players may recognize as the director of Resident Evil 4, God Hand, and Vanquish, offered their thoughts on the topic during a recent interview given to Japanese video game news outlet Gamespark in reflection of the upcoming Hella Remastered release of their aforementioned action-adventure collaboration, Shadows of the Damned.
Following a brief discussion on the improvements made to the Hella Remastered compared to the original 2011 version of the game (namely improved textures and keyboard-and-mouse support), as machine translated by DeepL, the two creators were met by their previous admonishment of content “regulations” (speaking to Japanese outlet Game Watch at the time of the original Shadows of The Damned release, Mikami specifically opined, “I feel that the scope of what is allowed in Japan is narrower than what is allowed overseas. Compared to the freedom allowed in other countries, Japan’s is narrow. In an age when the Internet is so widespread, I have the feeling of ‘Why are you saying this now?'”), to which they were asked if their current “thoughts” on the topic were “the same as they were back then?”
In turn, Mikami asserted, “My thinking has not changed at all since then. I think it is a strange situation when there are customers who want to enjoy a game with a unique aspect, and those who do not play games try to prevent people from enjoying the game by restricting their enjoyment of the work through regulations.”
“That’s right,” added Suda. “If regulations are imposed, we have no choice but to respond to them as part of our job, but I always wonder what people who play games would think.”
“For example,” he continued, “if a lot of people buy the PC version of this game on Steam because they want to play it without restrictions, it would be a bit sad, even though it is available on a variety of platforms. It makes me wonder what the restrictions are for. Who are these restrictions aimed at? …… I feel that at the very least, they are not aimed at the customers who play games.”
To this end, Mikami then raised the example of Dead Space, which, at the time of its initial release, “could not be released in Japan due to regulations, so if you wanted to play it in Japan, you had to get the overseas version somehow.”
“At that time, I had the opportunity to talk with people at the development studio in the US,” the original Resident Evil director recalled. “What I still remember vividly is that some of them were in tears, saying, ‘We couldn’t release the game in Japan after all the hard work we put into it. I can say this about the work I was involved in. I can say this about the films that I was involved in, but I am not doing grotesque or splatter films just because I want to express cruelty. I use them only as ‘accents’” in the direction of the film.”
“This is a difficult issue,” Suda further noted, “but it would be great if they could create a ‘CERO X’ rating on top of CERO Z [The Computer Entertainment Rating Organization, otherwise known as Japan’s answer to America’s ESRB or Europe’s PEGI system] so that the expressions of the overseas versions could be used in Japan as they are.”
To this end, their host then inquired, “wouldn’t it be quite burdensome to create two versions of the game, one for overseas and one for Japan?”, prompting Suda to confirm, “You are right, it is really hard work because we have to prepare and produce two versions of the game.”
“For this remastering, we had to merge the two versions that were being developed at the time,” he recalled, “and the amount of work involved was tremendous, and it had such an enormous impact that the development period was extended.”
At this point, Suda declared, “Anyway, Japanese gamers who want to enjoy this game without any restrictions should buy another copy on Steam!”
In response, the Gamespark interviewer asked, “I was a little concerned earlier, but is the version [of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered] that will be distributed on Steam the ‘unregulated’ version?”, to which Suda outright confirmed. “Yes, it is”, adding “You can play the same content as the international version.”
As this particular point of discussion grew to a close, the interviewer ultimately laughed, “You have no choice but to buy it on Steam!”, prompting Suda to further joke, “No, you see, we’ve made it so that you can play it on any platform, so please buy all versions!”
At current, Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is set to rock its way through Hell beginning on October 28th for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC players.
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