During one of the cinematics early in the game for Code Vein there appears to be a scene of censorship in the closed beta version of the PS4 game.
Bandai Namco rolled out the closed beta network test at the end of May, 2019, and various gamers and YouTubers had a chance to upload footage of their playthrough of the beta, showcasing the character creation, gameplay, boss fights, and cinematics. Well, during one particular cinematic around 15 – 17 minutes into the game (depending on who’s playing) there’s a scene where a character bites the player-character’s arm, drawing blood from the wound. During the cinematic the blood drips onto the magical tree.
In the Xbox One version the droplets of blood leave a puddle on the ground. However, on the PS4 version of the game the blood doesn’t leave a stain at all.
There are multiple videos showing this as well. The IGN video is based on the Xbox One version of the game and early on the cinematic reveals the blood droplets on the ground.
The same thing applies for the video from Player Essence, which is also from the Xbox One version of the game. It, too, shows the blood droplets forming a puddle on the ground.
And in HaloMillennium’s video it’s the same thing. The Xbox One version shows blood droplets forming a puddle on the ground.
Now if you compare those videos and images with the PS4 and PS4 Pro versions of the game, you’ll note that the PlayStation versions are all censored.
Gamespot’s video doesn’t show any blood droplets on the ground in the PS4 version.
Shirrako also uploaded PS4 Pro footage of Code Vein‘s network beta test and just like the Gamespot video, it was also censored of the blood droplets.
MKIceandFire‘s video was the same way. The stream of the network beta test for Code Vein on the PS4 Pro was also censored of the blood droplets.
Smaller channels like Blazzer Sora still revealed the same thing: that the PS4 version was definitely censored.
So the next obvious question is: Why?
We don’t know.
Some people have assumed that it’s the PS4 censorship policies at play, but usually those policies are employed for fan-service, ecchi content, or sexual material. In this case there’s just a cutscene with some droplets of blood on the ground.
Now it’s possible that it’s a glitch in the PS4 build of the network test, and they just didn’t have time to correct it. It’s also possible that they may have disabled those specific texture materials for the PS4 version, possibly due to memory reasons, or optimization purposes, or they just forgot to enable that decal during the cinematic.
However, there’s also the very real possibility that Sony simply didn’t want blood appearing in the cutscene for whatever reason, so it was censored out. This is despite the fact that Code Vein is rated ‘M’ for Mature on all three gaming platforms for “Blood, Partial Nudity” and “Violence”, according to the ESRB page.
So it’s not like people can use the excuse that the PS4 version had to excise the appearance of blood for ratings purposes. But again, this was the closed beta network test, opening up the possibility that the full game may not be censored. Of course we’ll have to wait to find out if that’s true when Code Vein launches September 27th, 2019.
(Thanks for the news tip Omar Garcia)
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