Dispatch being censored on Switch 2 has struck a nerve with players: ‘How is this censored and Cyberpunk isn’t?’

Dispatch is finally branching out into other platforms and has landed on the Switch 2. However, Nintendo seems not to have liked some of its more… mature parts, leading AdHoc Studio to censor the game instead of offering players the option to do it themselves.

Confirmed by the devs to Eurogamer, Dispatch will indeed launch on the Switch 2 with slightly modified content that’ll censor its adult side, as a few scenes in the game are sexual in nature and quite directly so. Previously, Dispatch gave players the option to censor the game themselves, a useful setting for those streaming the game or unwilling to be exposed to such themes.

Nintendo doesn’t seem to love options, though, and Dispatch on the Switch 2 will be censored by default.

Certain scenes (only a handful) have sexual depictions, whereas uncensored games like Cyberpunk have nudity at every corner. Image via AdHoc Studios

Fans reacted to this about as well as you’d expect, with awe and shock and wonder and borderline anger with Nintendo for enforcing such policies on a game that was never marketed to a younger audience in the first place. In fact, you’ve got Cyberpunk 2077 on there with no censorship whatsoever, and it could easily be argued that it warranted such an enforcement much, much more than Dispatch and its few sexually explicit scenes.

“If a game like Cyberpunk or even Witcher 3 can make it on the platform uncensored. What is the reason for singling this game out?” asked one bewildered player in a Reddit thread. “Censoring the game for absolutely zero logical reason is making this a hard pass for me,” commented another.

And it’s truly amazing to censor a singleplayer, story-oriented game, potentially alienating a good chunk of your adult player base for no real reason, especially where there’s no precedent and far worse offenders had been allowed onto the platform in their original forms.

The option to turn off nudity was right there, and it still is in every other version of the game. It seems a petty move targeting this one title when players could have self-censored if they so desired.

Censorship in video games, particularly that tied to sexual themes and depictions, has been on the rise, with moral police deciding what is and isn’t “decent.” From Horses to Visa and Mastercard threatening platforms into submission, it’s a really bad time to be a developer with a mature target audience.

Hopefully, this is just a fad that fades out as quickly as it has risen.