Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has been a smash hit for Ubisoft, releasing off of the back of both Sony and Xbox’s brand new console launches. For those who haven’t heard, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla broke series sales records during its first week of release.
Unfortunately, Ubisoft’s latest entry in the Assassin’s Creed series has not been without its own controversies, including apparently being censored in Japan. Now, Ubisoft has officially addressed the censorship issues in the Japanese versions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and will issue a fix in the future.
Apparently, the Japanese version of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla had most, if not all, depictions of blood completely scrubbed from the game. Initially, players were unsure if the Japanese versions of Valhalla were simply glitched or if depictions of blood were purposefully removed from the game. In the Japanese version of Valhalla’s options menus, there is a setting for players to toggle on and off in-game blood. However, players quickly noticed that even toggling the option to “on” resulted in no depictions of in-game blood, which many players were frustrated by.
Now, a Japanese Ubiblog post has addressed this issue officially after weeks of the game being out. In the post, Ubisoft acknowledges the issue, stating that blood cannot be depicted in-game and that the development team is “preparing a patch to solve the issue” releasing sometime in December. Ubisoft goes on to apologize for the inconvenience to its customers. It’s a strange issue to be sure, especially because on November 18, Ubisoft explained that the decision to remove the blood from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in Japanese versions was due to age rating regulations.
Yet, the age rating company called CERO in Japan confirmed a day later that Valhalla’s depiction of blood would still allow the game to be sold with little issue in Japan. As such, Ubisoft further explained in its apology post that the problem was an internal issue within the company which will be investigated further going forward. It’s understandable why Japanese players would be upset by this level of censorship, considering Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s combat is such an integral part of the game. Having major flair and effects such as in-game blood removed altogether would be jarring, to say the least.
Unfortunately, players who own the Japanese version of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will have to wait a bit longer to have in-game blood back in the game. Though Valhalla just received is 1.0.4 patch, the issue isn't solved alongside it. Fortunately, the issue should be resolved before the end of the year, though that’s still quite the wait to play the game the way it was intended.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Ubisoft