Nintendoes what Valve don’t: Game barred from Steam will launch on Switch - Ars Technica

Japanese publisher Spike Chunsoft announced that the first official English translation of visual novel Chaos;Head Noah won't be coming to Steam as planned "due to Steam's guideline-required changes to the game's content." But while the game is apparently too risqué for Steam, the family-friendly folks at Nintendo apparently have no problem with a Switch version that Spike Chunsoft says will still launch in the US on October 7 as scheduled.

The English PS4 version of Chaos;Child received an M for Mature rating from the ESRB, which described game scenes of strangling, torture, and "exposed brains" alongside sexual content like "two female characters moaning off screen while discussing each other's breasts.".

"I don't think it gets much worse than anything already in Steam's library," PQube Games Head of Localization Andrew Hodgson (who worked on the English translation of Steins;Gate) told Ars Technica of the "titillating and violent content" in the game.

That console port (and a later Vita re-release) received CERO Z content ratings in Japan, which "assumes that the game should not be sold or distributed to those younger than 18 years old" and is roughly equivalent to an ESRB "AO for Adults Only" rating in the US.

CERO's "content icon" system for that game only included a warning about "crime," however, and not violence or sexual content.

A Japanese Chaos;Head port for the Nintendo Switch, released earlier this year, received the higher CERO Z rating (and "crime" content icon) despite using the edited version of the game that previously received a CERO D rating.

The English translation will launch on Switch in the US next month, with an "M for Mature" rating and content descriptors that warn of "Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Language, [and] Intense Violence.".