Dispatch-utvecklaren ber om ursäkt för att spelet är censurerat på Swich 2

För den som längtat efter det hyllade Dispatch på Switch 2 så kom besvikelsen att det var censurerat. På andra format kan man själv välja om man vill se visst innehåll eller inte - men Nintendo valde den hårda vägen och censurerade allt oavsett. Nu har utvecklaren AdHoc Studio delat med sig av en ursäkt, de säger att de är ""truly sorry" för att Switch 2-versionen är censurerad. Man meddelar också att man försöker föra ett samtal med Nintendo angående just detta.

Nintendo säger själv att; "all games on its platform must meet Nintendo's established content and platform guidelines. AdHoc trodde inte spelet skulle censureras med hänvisning till andra titlar som The Witcher 3 och Cyberpunk 2077. Utvecklaren hade tänkt göra en tydlig märkning att spelet var censurerat - men den hade inte setts av flertalet köpare av spelet som sedan vädjade sin besvikelse. Nu har man dock sett till att om man köper spelet digitalt så det finnas en tydligare märkning där att Switch 2-versionen skiljer sig från på andra format.

AdHoc säger vidare att de arbetar med Nintendo om att försöka minska på censuren. Man kan inte lova att allt material kommer att finnas - men man ska försöka få tillbaka eller ändra delar av det. Det är oklart om detta betyder ifall man lyckas ta tillbaka visa scener eller helt enkelt gör om dem.

Uttalandet från utvecklaren kan läsas i sin helhet nedanför:

"We've been quiet for the last few days not because we don't want to address this stuff, but because we've been trying to make sure we're being good partners with Nintendo. They've made their own statement regarding this issue.

As Nintendo states, any game that's going to be on the Nintendo platform needs to 'meet [Nintendo's] established content and platform guidelines.' This is the key point. Nintendo has content guidelines. Our game didn't meet those guidelines, so we made changes that would allow us to release on their platform. That's what happened here. Honestly we thought this would be obvious since we're the devs that released the fully uncensored version of the game on other platforms.

We initially assumed, like some of you, that because games like Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk are on the platform with similar types of uncensored mature content, Dispatch would be allowed to do the same. During the porting process it became clear that was not the case. So we asked that we include a disclaimer on the store page to inform customers that content would be different than on other platforms. We worked with Nintendo to get storefront language approved.

Where we absolutely need to take full ownership is the placement of that disclaimer. Again, it was our intent to go out of our way to tell people looking to buy the game that the content was censored. While we didn't have complete control of the language, we did have control of the placement. Wires got crossed and we put the disclaimer in the field literally titled "Disclaimer", instead of the "About The Game" section. We didn't catch this until after the launch when we saw people saying we should have called out the changes on the store page, and we went to go make sure it was there. It technically has been the entire time, just in the absolute worst spot that makes it look like we were trying to hide it.

This is 100% our mistake and it was fixed in the Americas store pages a few hours after launch to give more visibility. We've also added a disclaimer before purchase. As of writing this, the other regions have either published this change or are in the process of review.

So what now?

We're already working with Nintendo on a path forward. While we can't make any specific promises just yet, we're confident we'll be able to push an update to address at least some of the censored content. I'll get ahead of it now and say that between dev time and the console submission process, we're talking weeks not days.

To our fans who were looking forward to playing the uncensored version on Switch, we're truly sorry. People have a right to be pissed. Lots of lessons learned here. Thanks for sticking with us. More soon."