The upcoming Gears of War: Reloaded will skip it’s PS5 release in Japan entirely, instead will only be available for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Game Pass and Steam when it arrives this August. The remastered version of the first Gears of War will not be sold on the PS5 in Japan due to the country’s “regional rating restrictions” which is a set of classification standards set by CERO, Japan’s game rating board.
And even though it’s currently unclear as to why Gears of War: Reloaded has failed to adhere to the regulations, it’s likely due to the excessive amount of gore and violence present in the game. As anyone who has played a title from the Gears of War series already knows, the game has a chainsaw weapon that allows players to brutally tear apart and cut down enemies’ limbs which goes against the “Mutilation/body-cutting” category in the CERO’s official website.
In fact, this is not the first time a game has been prohibited from being sold in Japan, The Callisto Protocol and the 2023 Dead Space remake were two games that were banned on consoles in Japan due to their depictions of extreme violence. It’s worth noting that all games with a 18+ content rating in Japan must pass CERO’s board in order to be sold on the PlayStation Store and perhaps that’s why Gears of War: Reloaded will be available in Japan via other platforms like the Xbox systems.
When the original Xbox 360 version of Gears of War was released in Japan, the game had gotten multiple censors with the severed limbs being blacked out entirely. And it’s currently unknown whether the Xbox versions of Gears of War: Reloaded will go through similar levels of censorship when it actually releases in Japan.
Gears of War: Reloaded is slated to be released on August 26 this year while Gears of War: E-Day, which is the next entry in the franchise, is currently confirmed for a 2026 release.
