I would prefer to let the subject go so that we can return to the discussions related to the mod, but there are 2/3 points on which I must react.
RobertCL wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2026 11:30 am
To my knowledge only France and Germany are behaving in such a way. For instance Medal of Honor Allied Assault (a FPS game) in France did not have any historical symbols, so most of players did purchase the English version of the game...
The French version of Medal of Honor is a special case, as we were indirectly affected by German law. Localizing a US (or Japanese) game for Europe required more work back then than it does today, since it involved converting from NTSC to PAL format and addressing other time-consuming technical issues (not to mention the languages, of course). To save time and money, publishers (EA Games in this case) aligned all European versions with the same model (except for the languages in the largest markets). And since, unfortunately, a version complying with French law (which has no law prohibiting the use of the swastika) couldn't be sold in Germany, a version scrupulously adhering to German law was chosen for all major European releases.
Many games of the time followed this model, but fortunately only when the changes were minor. I invite you to watch the German version of Command and Conquer Generals for a laugh, in which the game's soldiers are replaced by robots and cyborgs. In such extreme cases, an exclusively German version was produced and the rest of Europe were able to enjoy the usual US Rangers vs Chinese Red Guards of the original game
Frankly, even though I agree that it's a shame and that I would have preferred an original version, removing the swastika is only a minor aesthetic mistake.
Edit : I badly read and believed you talked about the original MOH on the PS1 (which had the same censorship issue).
You could remove the part about NTSC to PAL since it is a computer game, but it is basically the same reason.
bondjamesbond wrote: ↑Mon Mar 30, 2026 12:08 pm
And now we have to come up with rose petals and confetti instead of explosions and bombs – and make sure we don’t offend some idiots’ religious sensibilities, national identity, sexual minorities’ rights, and so on )))
Let's not exaggerate; it's not that the Germans are particularly sensitive.
At the end of the war, Germany was a field of ruins. They had terrorized Europe for a few years and committed numerous war crimes, and the country paid an enormous price for it. The Western Allies carried out massive bombing campaigns that devastated industrial cities, while the Soviets were taking revenge for the hell they had experienced in their own cities a few years earlier.
After the physical destruction : the political and moral reckoning. The Trials publicly exposed the crimes of the Nazi leadership and established responsibility for the war and the massacres. In many areas, the inhabitants living near concentration and extermination camps were brought there by Allied forces so they would fully grasp what had been done in their name. This confrontation with the reality of the regime and the scale of the devastation contributed to a long process of guilt and shame into the population. The political leaders who shaped postwar Germany were determined to ensure that such horrors would never happen again.
One of their priorities was to prevent any possibility of Nazism being glorified or its symbols being used to inspire admiration. Thus, the only contexts in which Germans were to see swastikas were primarily in educational materials, so they could learn about past events while remaining within a framework that conveyed the horror of what had occurred. No glorification of panzers rolling towards victory : just pain and horrors.
So no, the swastika issue isn’t simply censorship because Germans were particularly sensitive. Seen from today, 80 years later, it may feel distant or excessive, but when these decisions were made, the implications were still painfully clear to everyone.
In our strategy‑game context, I think everyone understands the historical issues, so I am entirely in favor of representing the swastika; but it would be a big mistake to take the subject lightly by assuming that Germans are just fans of censorship.
At that point, the Vatican had issued so many documents to allow war criminals to scatter across the globe that even the world’s intelligence agencies—the CIA, the KGB and so on—might well have been envious ))) But here we are again, caught up in the currently fashionable censorship, so strictly Pokémon, bunnies and bees—though it’s not clear what the insect rights activists might have to say about that )))
, yes this is a job 
