Trevor, Grand Theft Auto V’s resident sociopath, gets a little bit tamer for the Japanese release.
Grand Theft Auto V is a game that pulls very few punches, unless you live in Japan, in which case you’re getting some of the violence and sex censored out.
Some of the most extreme examples of censorship from the game include Trevor doing…well, pretty much anything, as far as Kotaku could find. Remember the scene at the start of the “Scouting the Port” mission, where he pulls down his pants to show off his junk? In the censored Japanese version, the animation is the same but the pants never even come off, so it looks more like Trevor’s just really proud of his jeans.
Also altered is the scene which first introduces Trevor, which most GTA V fans will recall involves him having sex with another character’s girlfriend on a kitchen counter. Unless you’re playing the Japanese version, in which case its Trevor just casually standing behind the girl and watching TV.
And the game’s infamous torture scene? It’s not even playable in the Japanese version. You see the cinematics that would bookend each round of Trevor beating his hostage from the American version, but in the Japanese game you don’t actually hit him with anything.
One other, non-Trevor change, is a paparazzi mission where Franklin gets some shots of a young celebrity having sex. Japan instead has Franklin catching her in the act of smoking, because apparently filling your lungs with nicotine is just as devastating to a celebrity career as a seedy sex tape. Kotaku has asked Rockstar for a reason for the cuts, but have not yet received an answer.
It’s not the first time a game in the Grand Theft Auto series has has been altered to be more acceptable overseas. When Grand Theft Auto IV was released back in 2008, Rockstar censored material in order to get it on store shelves in Australia.
Source: Kotaku
