The Evil Within Edited In Japan, Gore Mode DLC Let’s Players Get The Western Version

Bethesida Softworks originally had an August release planned for Shinji Mikami’s upcoming survival-horror game, The Evil Within, but the publishers announced its delay for an October release. ZeniMax Asia general manger Tetsu Takahashi shares more in a recent interview.

Takahashi starts out the interview by saying that the delay of The Evil Within was decided so they can have more time to work on the quality of the game.

Next, they talk about how The Evil Within will be rated CERO D in Japan (ages 17 and up). Famitsu asks how that ended up happening for such a game.

“If we were to make it the same way as the foreign version, it’d be rated CERO Z [18 and up] and we felt that it’d be best to release it the way the creators make it,” says Takahashi. “However, that would limit the sales and advertising, so we’d lose the opportunity to reach out to as many customers possible.”

Takahashi goes on to mention that they’ve decided to go with CERO D in Japan, but it won’t reflect on what the game is about. After thinking about a way to release the CERO Z version that will be released outside of Japan, that’s when they came up with the idea of having the “Gore Mode DLC”.

“The Evil Within will have two types of CERO D and CERO Z, with both of them having passed the CERO inspections, but the retail version will only be done using the CERO D version,” explains Takahashi. “Those who preorder the game can also get the CERO Z version’s representation through the Gore Mode DLC.”

According to Takahashi, the CERO Z content won’t be something that is already part of the disc, but added features that can be downloaded through the Gore Mode DLC.

Previously, it was possible for those who owned a CERO Z-rated game to purchase DLC for the game, but PSN and Xbox Live didn’t allow for CERO Z content non CERO Z games. Since this has changed, they saw it as a big opportunity to release the game in such a way.

As a side note, Grasshopper Manufacture’s Lollipop Chainsaw was also released in two versions of CERO Z and CERO D, so it won’t be the first time a game gets two CERO ratings in Japan, but this will be the first time that one version is being done through DLC.

“Speaking with Mikami [Shinji] about how having The Evil Within be rated CERO D won’t have an effect on the game itself, it has become possible to make it that way. Again, this new game is also getting a vast amount of pre-orders, so that also strengthened our resolve,” concludes Takahashi.

The Evil Within will be released on October 23, 2014 in Japan for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.