Hey there!

According to the developers Fallout 4 will come with a Steam DRM if you buy the boxed version.

Now last time when I bought the German CE of Fallout NV that one was a big disappointment. Not just that this version was cut, the voice acting was also poorly done, starting right at character creation.

The worst part of it: The German Version didn鈥檛 even allow you to swap to English Voice overs. It was completely limited to German ones.

Back then I also asked Steam if it was possible to swap the key to the international one (I speak German but I don鈥檛 live there), but of course they denied it as it basically were two different games (Uncut Version-> All languages including German, Cut Version-> Limited to German)

So I am wondering if the same will happen with Fallout 4. Will it be cut? Will the language be forced to German?

You're probably best tweeting to Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) as he was answering game region questions earlier in the week on there. He may have even answered yours already.

I read somewhere what there are different rules in Germany regarding video games and that's why they have to put up a seperate version for Germany... I don't understand though, if you are not living in Germany why do you have this problem? I live in France but I bought Skyrim on a British web-site so that I could have it in English and I haven't had any problem with it.

Well, the problem is not with buying it online, but with buying the boxed version. And as amazon.co.uk does not offer the Collectors Edition, but amazon.de does (as it was with Fallout New Vegas), I'd go for the German CE if it is available one more time.

Don't. Not even for the CE. German localizations should be considered criminal. The voice acting stinks and content gets cut.

Trust me. I live in Germany and I try to buy international when-/however possible.

It's unbearable.

Good! If they try to do it I'm sure it will work.

I don't think it's in their hands; there must be some law at work there that forces the game companies to censor their creations.

There is. Ratings boards. Like the ESRB. That's why L4D2 in Australia had no blood. Developers have literally zero input. If the ratings board of whatever country says something they have to do it.

So for example if in Germany they said Fallout can't have gore otherwise they won't give it a rating, thus banning it, Bethesda are helpless.

Since the New Vegas version in Germany was completely uncut, I hope FO 4 will be uncut too.

It sounds bad in Germany.

Hopefully they will get an uncut version.

But the presentation showed plenty of gore and body parts.

I'm looking forward to it, but I'm hoping for a no or reduced gore option.

Or at least a mod.

My ten year old as watched me play Fallout 3 and the hanging dead bodies are not some thing I want him to see.

And his mother has even more issues.

Lucky there were options.

He and I are excited about Fallout 4, but I'm wondering about what options Fallout 4 will have.

I know this is a mature game and I want it to stay that way.

I certainly want them to deal with mature subjects, but I'd like to have an option to make it less visual.

Well, they DID manage to bring Spacemarine to germany without cutting stuff.

Spacemarine without the blood and gore simply wouldn't work. It was rated age 18+ though, but I don't think that would be much of an issue.

Maybe they manage something similar for Fallout 4

I already explained somewhere how it works. And it's just about the rating. There is no law that force someone to censor their game. If the devs censor their game they do it to get lower ratings.

The worst case for FO4 would be that it get on the index. Which would mean they can't promote the game and the game can only be traded under the table (it's legal to sell the game but it's don't allow to show the game openly in the shop).

FO:NV was uncut. Even the Witcher or Assassin's Creed is uncut in Germany. I don't think the USK will put the game on the index. So there is not much to worry about.

Yes. Currently the USK is very tolerant. It's not like 10 years ago. The most games on the index are about Nazi topics...

Germany, Sweden, Australia, Canada....

places have some bizarre laws regarding freedom of expression.

The game being cut or uncut has nothing to do with freedom of expression. It's purely the developers choice as Thure93 explained.

They can decide to sell their game uncut in any case. But that would mean they are limited in exposition, limiting the sales. So it's the developers decision to cut it to avoid that.

Sure, with a blackmail hanging "you want to sell your game, make it the way we want it!". Whatever you call it, that's censorship. Fallout 4 is screwed.

i was just going to ignore that, but i'm glad you said something. seems pretty obvious to me.

legislation changed a lot since back then. as someone pointed out already: New Vegas originally was cut, but by the time the GOTY edition came out, the rules had changed, and the new version was released uncut. Nowadays we do have a 18+ rating that is used regularly, and it doesn't force an instant ban from advertising. this is nowadays reserved for an even harsher rating. Iirc it was an EU ruling, that brought us this new freedom.

so chances are, if FO4 isn't more gruesome than NV, it could be released uncut (there is a bit of a margin of error, depending on how the rating board handles the release and how much/litte negative press it gets before that)

(also, just for some perspective, we usually have less strict rules regarding nudity in media, so, no need to feel pitty for us US )

still, I'm definatelly not preordering the game here (maybe the collectors edition for the pip-boy, if it ever does show up for sale somewhere ).

also, with steam it's easier to change the language nowadays, irregardless of which version you bought. I know I got an uncut UK key for FO3 and I could switch the language to german.

How is censorship of gore strange?

Studies have indeed shown that children are susceptible to being influenced by violence in gaming. Violence in gaming will not make you or I a violent individual, but it's not the same for children, where yes it can influence them. In an ideal world people would listen to game ratings....but we all know that often doesn't happen, right? So these countries are taking a proactive step to stop it.

Live in Germany myself and it's annoying as hell cause it often includes preventing us from playing the english version, but I've never thought of the censorship as "bizarre."

What is bizarre is how phobic American culture can be of nudity.

Actually... it's not that way. They still can sell the game. They just can't promote it. But the ycan sell it. And as I said... this didn't happen very much currently. The only cencored games in Germany today are mostly about Nazi stuff. Gore is not a big problem in games anymore.

It was different 10 years ago. That was a era with very strict ratings. But today it's different.

And the USA... they need to censor the Witcher 1 six cards for the US... because nipbles or even cleavages are evil!

Yea I've never understood that. You can have as much gore and gratuitous violence as much as you like, but as soon as those boobs are on show HELLS NAH!

umm in canada yeah we get USA copy thing you could call bizarre is needing too a special french version if you want to sell in Quebec

I never got the appeal of games in your native language. At least in my language, norwegian, a translation makes the game sound silly and anticlimactic. Always preferred English language, and tbh, I'd rather experience a game in my 3rd - or learn a 4th language - over experiencing it in my native tongue.

It pretty much depends. I actually like the Sound of Nordic Languages (wathed Bron/Broen and 脛kta M盲nniskor in Swedish/Danish), but German in General also works pretty good.

So it's really the question of how much effort was put into the translation. Of course the original always has the advantage of being original, some stuff there is "as intended" which cannot be localized perfectly.

But the German lokalization industry is top notch. Several voice actors are extremely good, and their voices highly popular (e.g. Manfred Lehmann, voice of Bruce Willis). The question however is, how much the Game Developer is willing to pay and how much effort they are putting into it. For a good localization you don't just need a good translation, good voice actors but the voice acting also needs to be directed, which needs a tight cooperation with the developers.

Well.... truth be told, in Germany we are kinda used to having everything subbed/translated. And that isn't necessarily bad, also makes it a lot more accessible.

Regarding how its gonna sound....

I think there was some kind of enclave sargeant that did a lot of military yelling in FO I or II. I translated him into german and he sounded just as badass.

But non-germans often tell me they think our language sounds aggressive and military/precise, so theres that.

And voiceactors can really make the difference.

If you know Darkwing Duck, I advise you to go to youtube and listen to the english original and then the german translation. It CAN be an improvement sometimes.

Gotta say though sometimes the quality is kinda lacking, and of course some jokes always get lost in translation.

My favorite translation blunders inlcude turning a book called "The black magicians' guild" into "Die Gilde der schwarzen Magier", which is plural instead of singular and stops making sense as soon as you read the book.

And a StarWars one, turning "Jabba the hut", in German correctly "Jabba der Hutte" into "Jabba die H黷te", translated back trying to save the meaning "Jabba the shack", which is as stupid as it gets, seeing how well-known StarWars is.

Or in StarTrek, turning some kind of sports match against a vulcan into a match against a VOLCANO! And that was in a TV series, so quite a lot of people deactivated their brain for that one to happen....

I could really do without translation errors that make it impossible to divine the original meaning of a sentence or even give it an entirely new (and wrong) one.