Mortal Kombat 11, the next fighting game by NetherRealm Studios, was announced during The Game Awards. The game was given a release date of April 23rd 2019 for PC and consoles. It seems that Mortal Kombat 11 will be blocked from releasing on Steam in Japan.

Mortal Kombat 11

Japan is notorious for its weird and excessive censorship of violent video games. While Mortal Kombat X was still released in Japan, that will not be the case for the next one. Reports claim that Mortal Kombat 11 will not see a Japanese release. This is because the Japanese games rating board CERO does not allow games featuring extreme violence and gore to be released in the country.

According to the SteamDB listing of Mortal Kombat 11, the title will not be available to purchase in Japan. Normally for major titles such as this one, a censored version is released alongside or sometime after the global release. Due to the high amount of violence and gore, Resident Evil 7 was censored in Japan. In the case of Mortal Kombat 11, there is no news about a censored version. The only information we have is that the game will not be released in Japan. “Ratings are different per region and amongst them, Japan tends to be on the stricter side,” says Resident Evil 7 Director Kōshi Nakanishi. “To be frank, it can sometimes be a challenge during development. When we think of a specific scene, thoughts such as “it will be difficult to deal with ratings” or “let’s make a milder scene” start creeping in.”

Unfortunately for Mortal Kombat 11 fans in Japan, it looks like NetherRealm will not go through the effort of censoring the game. After seeing just how laboring the task of censoring a game is, publisher Warner Bros. likely decided to skip a Japanese release altogether.

Via One Angry Gamer