According to various reports, in its latest attempt to remove media which might be harmful to Germany's younger audience, a government body in the country has possibly removed as many as 27 titles from the Steam store.

Although Valve hasn't issued an official statement yet, it seems likely that the games were pulled by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons in Germany due to most of the games allegedly appearing on the "The List of Media Harmful to Young People", also known as "The Index". It is noteworthy that due to the absence of official statements from both the parties involved, Neowin has not been able to determine the accuracy of the claims as of yet.

The 27 games removed from the German Steam store include several popular titles, like the entire Postal series as well as Aliens vs Predator Classic, which was released in 2000. Some of the games mentioned in The Index were are considered to be controversial because of violence, crime, sex and nudity, as well as crude language. The titles removed from the German Steam store are as follows:

Aliens versus Predator Classic

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

Blood: One Unit Whole Blood

Blood II: The Chosen + Expansion

BloodRayne

BloodRayne 2

Carmageddon Max Pack

Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now

Harvester

Kingpin — Life of Crime

NAM

Painkiller: Black Edition

Painkiller Hell & Damnation

Painkiller Overdose

Postal

Postal 2

Postal 3

POSTAL Redux

Rise of the Triad

Rise of the Triad: Dark War

Rune Classic

Shadow Warrior Classic Redux

SiN Episodes: Emergence

Star Wars Dark Forces

The Chaos Engine

TimeShift

UberSoldier II

Similarly, all the bundles which included the aforementioned games have also been removed, which includes:

Carmageddon Complete Pack

Classic War Pack

Lucasarts Jedi Knight Bundle

Nordic Games Classic Mix

Painkiller Complete Pack

Painkiller Hell and Damnation Standard 4-pack

Painkiller Hell and Damnation Collectors

POSTAL 2 4-Pack

POSTAL 2 + Paradise Lost

Rise of the Triad - 4 Pack

Star Wars Collection - 2015 -RP

The Apogee Throwback Pack

The Chaos Engine 2-Pack

The Index is a list of of media; which includes games, books, music and movies, and is designed to protect children from any content which the government deems unsuitable for them. While the list for physical media is officially and frequently released by the German authorities, similar lists for virtual media are not disclosed in order to avoid advertising harmful content. Restriction for any form of media indexed in this list remains valid for 25 years. After the passage of this time period, if relevant authorities still consider the content to be harmful for children, legal proceedings begin anew.

It'll be quite interesting to see how the German gaming community responds to the controversy, provided that most of the titles are considerably popular. We will let you know as the situation develops.

Source: Steam via TechRaptor