Resident Evil Village won't have decapitations in Japan

In keeping with rules set by the national ratings board CERO, Resident Evil Village won't have decapitations in Japan, and it will be less bloody. That's according to a statement on Capcom's support page, which was neatly translated and summarised by this tweet.

Capcom's own announcement, very roughly translated by Google, confirms that two versions of RE: Village will release in Japan. This isn't uncommon: the CERO Z version cannot be purchased by under-18s and is more explicit, while the CERO D version cannot be purchased by under-17s and will feature less graphic violence. Both will lack decapitations, and both will lack unspecified scenes that will appear elsewhere in the world.

Still, in the words of Capcom, there will be basically "no difference" in the game content—it'll just lack footage of heads being being removed from necks, which some of us might prefer anyway. The statement is specific to the PS4 version, but it's just as likely to apply to the PC version, where extremely easy workarounds exist if you live in Japan and happen to want decapitations in your game.

CERO is quite strict about depictions of violent: recent examples of lowered gore in Japanese releases include The Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto 5, among others. Whatever the case, whether bloody or not-so-bloody, the Resident Evil Village release date is May 7.

Cheers, Kotaku.