10 Horror Video Games BANNED For Being Too Scary

Rockstar Games is no stranger to courting controversy, and after the original "murder simulator" Manhunt was deemed "injurious to the public good" by New Zealand authorities while being incorrectly blamed for a high-profile UK murder, the publisher only doubled down on the transgressiveness for the sequel.

Less than a month before Manhunt 2's planned release, it was refused classification by both British and Irish ratings boards, with the BBFC citing its "unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone...sustained and cumulative casual sadism...[and] unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying." They also claimed the release posed "unjustifiable harm risks to both adults and minors."

Clearly, the panic among uneducated censors and fear-mongers was that Manhunt 2's more "realistic" murder sequences might inspire the young and the vulnerable - who shouldn't be playing the game anyway, mind - to take up arms after playing it. Hmm.

The U.S. ratings body ESRB meanwhile issued it with an "Adults Only" rating, and given that Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony categorically don't allow AO games on their consoles, it meant that Manhunt 2 was effectively also banned in the U.S.

The game was eventually released in America several months later after Rockstar undertook comprehensive edits to the game's violence, namely blurring brutal executions or removing them entirely while also ditching the rating system for kills.

However, it took an additional year's worth of legal appeals before the BBFC were finally pounded into contrition and the censored Manhunt 2 was finally released in the UK.