Japan Release of Baldurs Gate 3 to Limit Nudity, Torture

The Japanese release of Baldur’s Gate 3 is set to be more censored than the versions released overseas, with its launch date scheduled for December 21. The game's publisher in Japan, Spike Chunsoft, announced that explicit sexual content would be removed from the game in order to comply with CERO’s Code of Ethics, which does not allow "banned expressions."

This means that the Japanese release will restrict players from enabling content such as the "display of genitals," "display of nudity in cutscenes," and "view sex scenes." Even though these aspects can currently be toggled off in other versions of the game, these restrictions will be permanent in the Japanese edition.

This announcement also covered removing the option for players to torture Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in Act 1's Goblin Camp. While CERO has given Baldur’s Gate 3 a Z rating — roughly equivalent to an M rating from the ESRB — these changes were made to satisfy Appendix 3 of CERO’s Code of Ethics, which strictly forbids the display of genitals and sexual intercourse.

This type of censorship is not unusual for Japan, with games like The Last of Us, The Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077 experiencing similar content modifications. Pancially, since Baldur's Gate 3 is known to have mature content, this could prove disappointing for some gamers.