There’s no question Agony was sold on the strength of its boundary-pushing content, taking place directly in hell and featuring eye-popping visuals that merge sexuality and torment in a way that would make Giger proud.
Fans who have been around since the crowdfunding campaign are in for a bit of an unpleasant surprise, though, as it appears there will be some censorship on the finished product after all.
Agony’s Uncensored Patch Gets Nixed
This news mostly affects the PC crowd, as console versions were always going to have to be toned down to get approval from Microsoft and Sony (much like Conan: Exiles losing its flapping genitals during character creation on the console editions).
There’s still plenty of bloody bits in unexpected places, though …
While you can get away with more on Steam than on Xbox One or PS4, the megalithic PC gaming platform still has certain content that is considered taboo — as many visual novel developers recently discovered when their game was placed under review or booted off the service.
Steam fans were expecting an official patch to be made available straight from the developers to get the full Adults Only-rating content. There was good reason to expect this, as Madmind Studios repeatedly stated such a patch was coming in official backer news updates and general forum posts.
At the 11th hour, that plan has been axed entirely. There’s no patch coming, and some content will never be added back into the game for you to experience first-hand.
As you would expect, the Steam forums have exploded with angry fans claiming they will refund and even directing other players to lodge complaints with the FTC for false advertising.
What’s In and What’s Out
Before you start calling the local Better Business Bureau to complain about the reduced vagina count in hell, there is some good news.
It turns out there’s less reason to be angry than you’d expect, considering what is making it into the final product. According to a statement from Madmind, all of this content made it past the censors into the launch version on Steam:
- Gore
- Brutal Sex Scenes
- Lesbian and Gay Sex Scenes
- Genital Physics
- Eye Gouging
- Heart Plucking
- Children Heads Exploding
- Setting Fire to Martyrs and Demons
- Intense Violence
- Strong Language
- Drugs
Whew … that’s quite a checklist, and honestly, I didn’t ever expect to see all those words go together in the same place before! So what exactly got culled out? According to that same statement from Madmind Studios:
Firstly, we have managed to include a lot of things that we originally wanted to provide in the patch in the final game. It has been accepted by PEGI and other rating companies. The censorship now affects only several seconds from two endings (out of seven) and some scenes that may be unlocked only after the end of the game.
How to View Agony’s Censored Content
SECOND UPDATE: A new version of the video is now available for streaming or direct download from the developer right here.
UPDATE: The removed content video was uploaded to YouTube… and then promptly removed for (obviously) violating their standards. We’ll get this updated when it goes live on some other service. How Madmind didn’t see that coming is beyond baffling.
Having mercy on all us deviant psychopaths who need to witness the horrors of a sexed-up hell, Madmind announced all the cut content will be made available in a video clip.
In other words, it appears we can officially put down the pitchforks and torches. While you won’t get to play it in-game, you can still see everything that was cut.
Right now the big question is just where it will be hosted. If this content caused the game to get the dreaded Adults Only rating, obviously YouTube isn’t going to have it, so expect a different video hosting service.
As soon as that clip goes live, we will update this article with the exact location where you can see it, so check back soon!
In the meantime, check out our other Agony guides here for info on how to navigate the bowels of hell and possess martyrs while escaping evil succubi.
Published: May 29, 2018 11:44 am