Fruitbat Factory wanted to clear the air about the upcoming Steam release of The Princess, The Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart, noting that the game is not based on the censored PS4 version and is actually closer to the Switch version, along with sporting a few new scenes that were not present in the original PC version from 2016.

Fruitbat Factory wanted to clear the air about the censorship discussion after gamers expressed worry about the visual novel during the initial announcement. The publisher explained that the Steam release is not based on the heavily censored PS4 version of the game, which featured completely altered CGs that removed almost all of the fan-service or contained light rays that obscured the view of cleavage, navel and thighs. A contact at Fruitbat explained….

“[…] I can confirm that the game doesn’t use the mega-censored PS4 CGs. I’d seen that comparison myself too. I believe they’re the same versions used on Switch, or possibly some graphics are even less censored but I haven’t done an in-depth comparison. Overall the international release has around 17 CGs not present in the original PC version. The new PC version also features a dual language feature where you can display 2 languages at once (currently English and Japanese, but Chinese will also be added sometime soon), and an all-new “Mewsings” scene unique to this version.”

It’s true that it’s not based on the pS4 version of the game. If you check out the launch trailer on the Steam store page you’ll note that it uses the Switch’s version of the CGs and not the PS4 version.

For those of you who don’t remember, the PS4 version contained the infamous light rays, usually referred to in Japan as the “mysterious lights”.

This is probably the biggest relief of the matter because a lot of people were worried about the Steam version being based on the censored PS4 version, but thankfully it’s not.

So now it can be put to rest regarding what version of the game is coming to Steam. It’s closer to the Chad-tier Switch version than the virgin-tier PS4 version.

And while it’s not quite equivalent to the R18+ PC version, it does at least contain 17 new CGs and the new “Mewsings” scene.

In a related note, another thing people were concerned about is why the R18+ version of the game wasn’t being licensed for release on Steam. According to Fruitbat it was Harukaze who originally setup the licensing deal and who chose to port the game through TOKYOTOON for Steam. So all of the decisions regarding which version would be licensed for release on Steam was done on an executive level above Fruitbat.

Essentially Fruitbat is just in a supporting role for the release of the game. In the e-mail it was explained…

“We only got involved at the last meters of the release when we saw that they [needed] assistance in making it go more smoothly. All the executive decisions related to the game have been made by the original developer and we can only give them our advice.”

The company is working with quality assurance to ensure that the game runs right proper on Steam, and had no say-so in the licensing terms and agreement. This also extended to the voice acting licensing, which was again outside of their control. The original deal determined how the voices could be used under specific distribution terms, and apparently an international release wasn’t covered under those terms. All of that is covered between Harukaze and the original voice actors’ contract.

However, this does not mean that modders can’t move over certain scenes and audio files if they did happen to have the original PC version of The Princess, The Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart.

TL;DR: The Steam release of The Princess, The Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is not based on the censored PS4 version of the game, but is closer to a mix between the Switch version and the original R18+ version. There will be 17 new CGs and a new “Mewsings” scene. Fruitbat had no say-so in the licensing terms, all of that was handled by Harukaze through TOKYOTOON. The game is still scheduled to release on the Steam store starting June 17th.