Legal threats force developer’s action
Today sees the unleashing of hellish survival horror title Agony. The first-person adventure sees the player take charge of a Matyr, fated to Hell, who must escape the underworld by coming face-to-face with the terrifying Red Goddess.
The game has struggled with the ratings authorities due to its violent, sexual and overall grim thematic content. It originally received an Adults Only rating – considered the kiss of death in the industry – before cuts were made to obtain the slightly more commercial Mature certificate.
Initially, developer Madmind Studio had planned to restore the cut content (seemingly limited to scenes in two of the game’s seven possible endings) to the PC release via a patch post-release. Unfortunately for Madmind, this method would be classed as circumventing the official ratings board. As such, they game would be withdrawn from sale, and would incur severe legal repercussions for the studio.
In one of those baffling hypocrisies that affect almost all censorship matters, Madmind plan to release a video within the next couple of days which will show the offending content in full. This, of course, is absolutely fine. Perhaps because of the lack of context. You sometimes saw horror movies on DVD that would had censored footage as extras, but the studio couldn’t actually reinsert it into the movie itself.
Regardless of said censorship, Agony still looks like a pretty monstrous game, packed to the brim with guts, gore and other debauchery that goes far beyond my delicate sensitivities. It is available today on PS4, Xbox One and PC.NSFW link: Censorship in Agony final statement [Official Steam]