The Callisto Protocol is just too violent for Japan, release canned (2024)

The Callisto Protocol is next week's big release, but not if you happen to live in Japan - its release has been cancelled because it's just too violent.

The game, which was due to arrive on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on December 2, now won't. At least not in Japan. that's after Striking Distance and publisher Krafton took the decision following issues in getting the game certified for release by the CERO. The outfit is Japan's version of PEGI in Europe and the ESRB in Europe, and without a rating from CERO, nothing can be released.

According to a tweet to the game's Japanese Twitter account, the game simply wasn't able to "pass the CERO rating" according to machine translation. Rather than change the game's content in order to achieve a rating, the team behind The Protocol has instead decided to cancel the launch altogether.

The tweet goes on to say that anyone who has placed a pre-order for The Callisto Protocol in Japan will receive a full refund, as would surely be expected.

There is some good news however, at least for people outside of Japan. Striking Distance CEO Glen Schofield has already been making noises about a potential sequel, telling Inverse that the team already has some cool ideas for what that game could offer. He went on to say that he always starts looking for the next big thing as soon as work on the previous project is complete.

That's now, then, with The Callisto Protocol just days away from being in the hands of gamers everywhere. Just not those in Japan, unfortunately.