10 Iconic Video Games Banned For Ridiculous Reasons
6. Resident Evil 2 - Germany - Violence
Germany has a longstanding history of censorship thanks to the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (the “Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons”), mostly commonly known as “the index”. During the early days of Capcom’s survival horror series, several entries found themselves banned for sale due to the violence and gore.
What makes Resident Evil 2 in particular remarkable was the anticipation of the ban. With the big jump in graphics and increased realism over the first game (yes, this game was the height of realism in 1998), Capcom Europe were very aware that German censors would be on edge.
So, when the European version of Resident Evil Director’s Cut released, the bonus demo for RE2 was noticeably absent from the German versions. It made sense, but for fans this was concerning because rather regretfully Capcom’s art team forgot to take the screenshot of the RE2 demo off of the back of the box… Oops.
As expected, Resident Evil 2 did indeed land on the index. Thus, Capcom put together a “cut” version of the game to try once more… but this was also banned.
It wasn’t until 2014 when Resi 2, 3 and Code: Veronica found themselves freed from Germany’s Index and available uncensored for the first time on the PlayStation Store.