Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Rating Confusion

Shacknews brings word of two contradictory reports detailing the amount of censorship that will be included in the North American and German version of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

“If you buy the US version, you will not see nipples,” community manager Shannon Drake wrote on the official Age of Conan forums. Meanwhile, the German version will have full gore and nudity but will not feature decapitation, dismemberment or excessively graphic fatalities. An edition sold elsewhere in Europe will be wholly uncensored.

“Please note this isn’t a design decision or something we can reverse,” noted Drake. “It’s a legal (or as good as legal) requirement to sell the game in that particular territory.” Oddly, other Mature-rated titles, such as SCE Santa Monica’s God of War (PS2) and God of War II (PS2), have been able to legally display female nipples in their North American releases.
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Update: Contradicting earlier statements, Funcom community manager Shannon Drake now claims that the North American version of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will include nipples, though the German edition will still be edited to reduce in-game violence.

“It has come to our attention that the North American edition of the game was submitted (by [publisher] Eidos) to the ESRB without any server-side censorship,” Drake clarified. “Funcom apologizes for this small error (or maybe two small errors).”

However, despite the insistence that the North American version was granted an M rating with no censorship, Drake points out that the game will not feature full nudity. At this time, it is unknown if other editions will include full nudity or if this was merely a general statement.

Oh no, not nipples! Think of the children!

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