It’s not going on sale in India, had advertising pulled from the Washington DC metro system and Internet, run into controversy over the decision to not allow you to kill kids in the game. And now, Bethesda’s post-apocalypse role-playing action game Fallout 3 has been censored before release in Japan.

According to a Japanese press release, kindly translated by Kotaku, several changes have been made to avoid inflaming understandable Japanese cultural sensitivities over the atomic bomb. Side quest “The Power Of The Atom” has been altered – so you cannot now detonate a nuclear bomb in the centre of a town. Also one weapon name has been changed – Kotaku guesses it’s the “Fat Man” mini-nuke launcher: the name given to the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

Still, as they say, controversy sells. And Bethesda have announced that Fallout 3 is no exception – it’s top of the UK charts and sold 4.7 million units in its first week.

Out now | from £35 (for PC, PS3, Xbox 360) | Bethesda

  • davidovich53

    Let’s not lose sight of the fact that, first and foremost, this game was made in the US intended for a US audience; Bethesda wasn’t thinking of appeasing overseas audiences when they were making the game. And seriously, I can’t blame them.

  • HydroBlitz

    seriously?
    do americans get offended when we see american troops (of which my grandpa, who died a few years ago, was one of) get killed in a WWII game? the japanese attacked america and america attacked back. that happened a while ago. are we offended by that new game “valkrie profiles” which makes it look like a saturday morning cartoon? also, im a christian who doesnt believe in killing. i kill in this game. if i thought that cows were sacred, id probably still play this game.

Hot chat, right here!


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