Traditionally, Europe gets the short end of the stick with video games. North America would get games from Japan as soon as they were translated because they both used NTSC TV tech and thus didn't need to do much screen output tweaking. Europe used PAL and SECAM and had more languages to translate into, so they’d have to wait much longer for their official releases. If they even got released at all, as the likes of Mega Man 6, Parasite Eve, and nearly every SNES RPG never went over the pond in their prime.
Even then, PAL and SECAM’s slightly better resolution and picture quality mattered little when they slowed the game down by nearly 17%. It wasn’t until the Dreamcast/PS2 era that most Brits, Germans, Swedes, and more got to play games at a full 30 or 60FPS. But that wasn’t the only problem with releases across the pond. These are just a few games that cut content for their European versions.
10 Contra
Konami’s classic sidescrolling shooter rankled some European countries with its wanton violence. So, in a bid to please them, Konami replaced Bill and Lance with robots, the human enemies with aliens, and changed the name to Probotector. This would last until Contra: Legacy of War, where the name and humans would finally make it to Europe.
Even then, the series had little luck, with Contra 4 on the DS never reaching the continent outside import sales. However, this “Probotecting” only applied to the NES, SNES, and Genesis releases. The Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC versions retained Bill, Lance, and co. by using the old Gryzor name from the arcade game. Maybe the issue was less the violent content and more it being named after the Iran-Contra Scandal.
9 Ninja Gaiden
Tecmo’s shinobi slasher never had much luck in Europe. Between Germany’s aversion to violence and the UK’s fear of the word “ninja” at the time, both the classic NES games and the less spectacular arcade game were renamed Shadow Warriors and toned down. Still, better to be released than not at all.
The third NES game never came out in Europe, save for a port on the Atari Lynx that somehow managed to retain the "Ninja Gaiden" name. Things wouldn’t be any better for the 2000s Xbox reboots either. The “ninja” word was no longer forbidden, but decapitations were. Europeans wouldn’t get to lop heads off until its later re-releases.
8 Zombies Ate My Neighbors!
LucasArts’ classic top-down run & gunner wasn’t quite as cut down as its rivals. Europeans got all the same levels and characters. But it had some odd censorship. All the Jason Voorhees-looking enemies had their chainsaws replaced with axes, which led to most of the levels being renamed too (“I Was a Chainsaw Maniac” became “I Was a Maniac Lumberjack”).
The Genesis version kept the bloody Game Over screen, while the SNES port changed the American purple version to an eye-searing green instead. Europe also nixed the “Ate My Neighbors” part of the title too. So, 90s kids in Europe had to play Zombies! and fight masked lumberjacks to avoid getting covered in Nickelodeon Gak. Still sounds as 90s as ever.
7 Carmageddon
Stainless Games’ notorious racer where players could or had to run over pedestrians to win was bound to attract controversy. It came out in 1997, the same year the first Grand Theft Auto gave players the same brutal thrills. Yet there was something about running over people in 3D that was somehow worse than in 2D.
The UK outright banned its release for 10 months until the developers replaced the red-bleeding humans with green-spewing zombies. Germany went further, opting to replace the zombies with robots that bled black oil. Even in this state, Carmageddon was coated in so many 18+ ratings that it made it look more mature than it actually was.
6 Grand Theft Auto 3
By Grand Theft Auto 3, the UK had lightened up enough to accept Claude driving up on the sidewalk to run rival gang members over. Germany eased up a bit too but still insisted that the violence had to be toned down before its citizens could (officially) play it.
Players couldn’t kick defenseless enemies in the German version, nor could they blow off limbs or blast heads with their firepower. They didn’t bleed when hit or drop cash as a reward for killing them either. If that sounds like it’d make the Rampage Missions kind of lame, the game got around that by removing them altogether.
5 Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Collection
People today love Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, but its stock was so low in the early 2000s it was playing second fiddle to a rejigged re-release of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Made to celebrate the series’ 15th anniversary, Hyper SF2 let players pick whichever version of its cast against each other, like original derp-face World Warrior Ryu against super combo-using Super Turbo Chun Li, etc.
The more modern, sleekly animated Third Strike was thrown in as a bonus extra in Japan and North America for both the PS2 and Xbox ports. But it only reached Xbox owners in Europe. PS2 owners had to make do with a censored version of Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie on the disc instead. For a consolation prize, there was little consolation to be had.
4 No More Heroes
Grasshopper Interactive’s irreverent slash ‘em up and odd job simulator could be considered a case of extra content for the US than cut content for Europe. Travis Touchdown’s limb-lopping strikes would produce enough blood flows to rival the Bellagio Water Show in Las Vegas. It could even cause slowdown in places. That’s because it’s not available in other territories.
Both the original Japanese and European releases reduced the blood, blacking out any stumps and turning killed opponents into black pixels, like a video game or something. It could be argued the censored version is more accurate, as Suda 51 personally preferred its look. Though saying less visual excitement is a good thing can be a hard argument to make.
3 Professor Layton And The Last Specter
The Professor Layton games are perhaps the most European-feeling Japanese game franchise. Many of the series’ settings and characters are British. While the art style, even with its anime touches, resembles Franco-Belgian comics like Tintin or Sylvain Chomet movies. That’s not getting into the violin and accordion-filled soundtrack, which out-Frenchs most of the French! So, how on earth did Professor Layton’s London Life never make it to Europe?
This RPG side game in Professor Layton and the Last Specter was in every other international version. But it was removed entirely for its European equivalent Professor Layton and the Spectre’s Call. According to Nintendo, it’s because they didn’t want to delay the game’s release by translating even more hours of text into French, German, Italian, etc., on top of the rest of the game. So, the only Londoners who could see the Professor’s London Life were the ones in Ontario.
2 South Park: The Stick Of Truth
It’s South Park. The series thrives when it’s under scrutiny. Even when creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are told to change things, they’ll find a way to either be more profane (e.g., The movie South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut) or get their gags through anyway (The Fractured Butthole became The Fractured But Whole). However, South Park: The Stick of Truth’s European censorship was actually self-imposed by Ubisoft.
The uncut US game actually passed PEGI with an 18 rating. But the game was resubmitted with the more questionable content replaced with a facepalming statue over the EU flag, where it was still rated 18+. If that was a case of trolling, the cuts for Germany weren’t, as the Nazi Zombies infringed their criminal code. Every swastika and salute had to be blacked out, and the Hitler quotes muted.
1 The Last Of Us
Naughty Dog’s heavy survival sim just keeps coming back. After wowing PS3 owners, it would get the critically acclaimed DLC Left Behind, a PS4 port, a sequel, a remaster, and an HBO show that’s impressed viewers with its tender storylines. That, and establishing Pedro Pascal as the “Internet Daddy”. However, there was something about the original game that never made it to Europe.
The violence in the multiplayer mode was toned down, removing the ability to blast open heads or lop off limbs. This could still be done in the main singleplayer story. It was only doing it online that was somehow a step too far. Given other European nations were fine with it, people surmise that the cuts were done to keep Germany happy. Whatever the case, the only game without it is the PS5 version because it doesn’t have a multiplayer mode at all.