After several high-profile setbacks, it seems South Park: The Stick Of Truth has gotten one final delay—in Germany and Austria, at least. In accordance with German law, which prohibits the depiction of Nazi symbols, all of the game’s swastikas (and seeing as how you fight Nazi zombies, it has a lot of swastikas) were supposed to be removed in the European version. According to a report on the New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog, Ubisoft, the game’s publisher, missed a swastika and had to hold back the German and Austrian versions from the game’s European release on March 6th while it was surgically removed.
The swastikas aren’t the only part of the game that has been changed outside the United States. Several scenes where players control abortion and anal probing were removed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions across Europe and Australia. According to The Guardian, the uncut American version of the game made it through the European ratings process without question, but Ubisoft later decided to cut the scenes anyway. The publisher has yet to give a reason for their removal. Instead of those lovely-sounding scenes, here’s what console players in those territories will see: