8 Times Censorship Almost Ruined Your Favourite Video Games

8. Conker: Live And Reloaded Proved Microsoft Were Tamer Than Nintendo

The Conker series has always had a strange relationship with censorship. Originally envisioned as a cuddly mascot platformer in the same vein as Mario 64, the developers at Rare quickly changed focus on the original Conker when they realised that the market was too saturated, turning their titular hero into a hard-drinking, womanising rogue instead.

Begrudgingly, Nintendo released the adult-themed game which became a cult hit on its platform. When Rare was bought out by Microsoft shortly after however, their new owners also wanted a bit of the Conker pie, and tasked the studio with making a remixed version of the title for the original Xbox.

Weirdly enough though, while Nintendo - a company notorious for censoring its releases and aiming for the widest family market possible - were fine with Conker's adult themes, Microsoft had a bit of a problem with them. Despite originally being titled Live and Uncut, somewhere in development there was a decision to heavily censor the game, with even small curse words and innocuous toilet humour being edited out entirely.

It was Rare's first misstep under Microsoft, and it neutered an otherwise excellent and original voice in the gaming space.