Dispatch is censored on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and this might be the reason why

Superhero narrative adventure Dispatch has been censored on Switch and Switch 2, and players are trying to figure out who’s ultimately responsible.

The episodic narrative adventure game by AdHoc Studio – set up by veteran developers from Telltale Games, Ubisoft and Night School Studio – released last year and was critically acclaimed for its art style, branching storyline and sense of humour.

The game was released on Switch and Switch 2 on Wednesday, but players have been reacting negatively to the news that some of the adult content in other versions of the game can’t be accessed on Nintendo‘s consoles.

Dispatch features occasional scenes of nudity, where breasts and penises are visible. There is a setting in all versions to enable a visual censorship option which covers them with a black bar (as well as other things like middle finger gestures), but on Switch and Switch 2 this option is on by default and there’s no way to turn it off.

Some argue that one scene in particular is affected by the censorship, in which female superhero Blonde Blazer asks her colleague Robert Robertson what he thinks of the dress she’s wearing for an event.

A small part of Blonde Blazer’s nipple is poking out from the dress, which leads to humorous dialogue in which the player has to decide whether to mention it or pretend they don’t see it. It could be argued that replacing this with a large black bar makes the situation appear somewhat less subtle and affects the scene as a result.

AdHoc has explained that the reason the Switch and Switch 2 versions don’t have an option to remove the censorship is because the game had to meet certain standards for release on the Nintendo eShop.

“Different platforms have different content criteria, and submissions are evaluated individually,” the studio said in a statement to Eurogamer. “We worked with Nintendo to ensure the content within the title met the criteria to release on their platforms, but the core narrative and gameplay experience remains identical to the original release.”

This statement has been interpreted in numerous ways across social media, with some accusing Nintendo of double standards for allowing a large number of adult-themed games on the store – more than 100 games on the eShop have the word ‘Hentai’ in the title, even though they don’t necessarily have explicit nudity in them.

One possible reason for the censorship is the way games are sold across different regions on the Nintendo eShop. Often the eShop hosts a single game across multiple languages, and the game simply changes its language depending on the system settings of the console.

For example, as explained in our guide to buying games from different eShop regions, if players buy The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from the UK eShop then change their system settings to Japanese, the game changes to the Japanese version. Likewise, if a Japanese eShop listing for a game lists English as a supported language, downloading the game onto a UK Switch 2 would result in the English version appearing on the player’s home screen.

Japan’s ratings board CERO has strict censorship around nudity in games (as well as dismemberment), so it could be that the “criteria to release” on Nintendo platforms referred to by AdHoc isn’t a case of Nintendo objecting to the nudity, but CERO, and since it’s the same game on all eShop regions the censorship may have to apply across the board.

If this is the reason, one way to get around this could be to release two versions of the same game on the eShop, and restrict them to certain regions. This was what CDProjekt did with the Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk 2077 – the version released in the west isn’t available on the Japanese eShop, which instead offers an entirely separate CERO Z-rated version of the game with no nudity or decapitations.

Since AdHoc is a smaller, independent studio, however, it would likely be more cost-effective to submit a single eShop version worldwide instead of multiple separate ones, especially given that future patches or updates would also have to be submitted multiple times.

VGC has contacted AdHoc for further clarification on the above.