South Park creator Matt Stone has branded the South Park: The Stick of Truth censorship in the EMEA region as “lame, ridiculous and stupid.”
The EMEA version of the South Park game saw select scenes removed and replaced by on-screen text detailing the censored action appearing in its place.
Stone has spoken out against the decision in an interview with the Metro, branding the move “ridiculous”.
“We weren’t going to change the content, so we’ve written little cards to explain what is going on, what they’ve censored, and made a joke out of it.”
The censored scenes include two mini-games concerning abortions and five scenes where characters are “actively” being anally probed.
“We’re talking about 30 or 40 seconds out of the whole experience but we wanted people to know exactly where the line was: this is what you couldn’t see but for some reason the rest of the world could and we have no idea why. It’s lame, ridiculous and stupid.”
The game had already earned at 18 rating in the UK from PEGI, but the decision was made to cut the offensive scenes nonetheless due to their obscene content.
When questioned on the matter, publisher Ubisoft said “this was a market decision”.
The Stick of Truth story is taken from an original script by creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The game is loosely related to the recent Black Friday trilogy episodes.
Stone also admitted to being embarrassed by the previous South Park games.
“WE really didn’t want to make a game that sucks,” said Stone. “There were some South Park games, like, 15 years ago but they were just cheap licensed products and we hated them frankly.”
“[The Stick of Truth is] a great way to be introduced to the world of South Park: become a character and let that character grow, like a Grand Theft Auto situation.”
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