Striking Distance Studios refuses to make changes to The Callisto Protocol, and Japan’s CERO has decided to cancel the game’s release in their region.

A statement posted to Twitter, announces that the release of the game in Japan will be cancelled following its inability to pass the Computer Entertainment Rating Organisation (CERO) rating. All purchases of the game will be refunded to gamers across the country. It is a true disappointment to fans there, who were very excited about the release of this interactive horror game.

The CERO asked the game’s team to censor certain scenes and violence and after that was done then the game could be released in Japan. Developers of The Callisto Protocol, Striking Distance Studios, are refusing to censor the game because they think it will compromise the experience that players would have.

A thread on Twitter spread the word about the game cancellation; also, it gives us more information about how many games in Japan are censored due to CERO’s ratings.

The statement released by the game developers was obviously released in Japanese, but the statement basically reads “The Callisto Protocol’s Japanese version has been discontinued. At present, it cannot pass the CERO rating,” before going on to say that the team decided that making CERO’s required changes would “not provide the experience players expect.” We are unsure of what exactly made CERO turn their nose up at The Callisto Protocol, but the gory violence that happens throughout the game is probably the main reason.

While fans are understandably upset, they refuse to be simply stopped by CERO. Fans online are looking for The Callisto Protocol with Japanese language options despite the ban. Fans everywhere are in suspense waiting for the release of the game coming December 2nd, 2022. Unfortunately, Japanese fans will have to wait and see if they will be able to get access to the game or not.