If you’re a communist sympathizer thinking China’s the savior of gaming just because big-budget Western and Japanese studios are too busy censoring and pandering to inclusivity instead of actually catering to gamers, you’re dead wrong.
Chinese regulators have hammered down on more than a dozen gacha games that feature “fanservice” with attractive women in revealing outfits. Games like Path to Nowhere and Snowbreak Containment Zone are just a couple of the ones caught up in this crackdown.
The saga of Snowbreak rolls on as the infamous free-to-play gacha game basically reinvented itself to serve up content aimed at heterosexual players. They swapped out male NPCs and seriously amped up the game’s sex appeal, drawing in enough profits to consider bringing back the English dub cast.
But those same voice actors turned down the chance to make a buck in protest of the game’s newfound fanservice focus, which includes interactive scenes between players and its busty maidens.
Disaster struck for the Chinese developers of Snowbreak: Containment Zone when they were forced to implement censorship due to an age rating screw-up that put Amazing Seasun under the CCP’s microscope.
The company had to retroactively redesign costumes to make them more appealing and introduced sexier cosmetic options for purchase before the game’s age rating was updated to reflect its new, risqué direction. This censorship resulted in various outfits being yanked from the store, though players could keep the ones they had already bought.
Certain character changes couldn’t be disabled, at least not until Amazing Seasun added a way for players outside of China to toggle this censorship on and off using a provided “localization.txt” file in the game’s files.
After already facing scrutiny over censorship, which pretty much kills these kinds of games for global audiences, Amazing Seasun and other Chinese-developed gacha games are cracking down with even more severe and noticeable censorship, clearly imposed by the CCP.
A lengthy post on Snowbreak‘s official Twitter account announced a hotfix update scheduled for October 30th, making adjustments to various in-game outfit designs, story illustrations, and even the game’s interactive scenes.
Characters like Fenny Starshine will see visual model changes, along with outfit adjustments for Yao, Mauxir, Chenxing, Katya, Enya, Cherno, and Marian’s Riptide weapon skin, the latest addition released as a freebie on October 10th, intended to feature its own interactive scene.
Ultimately, players will be disappointed to learn that at least eight individual outfits will undergo visual changes after this hotfix, with no details on how extensively they will be censored.
Other alterations will impact illustrations featuring characters like Lyfe, Fenny, and Marian. However, the most damaging aspect of this update is the changes to Snowbreak’s interactable scenes with specific characters, which players will no longer be able to fully enjoy.
Specifically, the interactive leisure scenes featuring Katya Dawnwing from the recent Azure Paradise update will no longer be accessible.
Snowbreak has stated that this decision is temporary and that the scenes will be reintroduced after the game’s 2.3 update. However, given the ongoing changes to numerous character outfit designs, it doesn’t take a genius to see the likely reason behind Amazing Seasun’s decision to temporarily pull the scene, it’s all about imposing censorship and making adjustments.
The same goes for Marian Riptide’s interactive scene, which isn’t available yet but was essentially offered as a “pre-order” deal with the “Night of Desire” interactive scene set to roll out with the game’s 2.3 update.
However, the scene preview will be disabled, and changes will be implemented when it finally arrives in Snowbreak with the 2.3 update. Additionally, it was announced that various story images, cutscenes, and related content for the Azure Paradise event will also be adjusted, likely to align with the model changes made to various characters.
The October 30th adjustments in Snowbreak will also provide BitGold refunds for specific outfit and scene purchases made before the update, signaling that the changes are unlikely to sit well with those who bought them. Tier 5 Quartermaster players will receive exclusive rewards, while certain outfit owners will get free items and Bright-Star Ticket refunds.
Amazing Seasun plans to issue commemorative in-game rewards for all players after the update.
For players, this is horrifying news. However, before you throw in the towel and bail on the game altogether, there’s a decent chance that the localization bypass implemented by Amazing Seasun to sidestep visual design changes might help mitigate the upcoming update. Ultimately, though, it’s still uncertain how the changes to the game’s interactive scenes will play out.
Seasun has remained committed to providing fanservice elements to players, as they mentioned in a recent interview. However, these changes were largely forced upon them by the Chinese government.
Numerous other gacha games have also faced hotfixes enforcing cosmetic changes for revealing outfits, including the strategic RPG Path to Nowhere, which modified various character illustrations to cover exposed cleavage, underboob, and belly buttons. Other Chinese gacha games hit with censorship in the same timeframe include ETE Chronicle, Cross Core, and Starward, all featuring attractive anime girls in alluring outfits.
It’s truly refreshing to see the Chinese government stepping in to curb rampant heterosexuality, because, obviously, the gambling habits these mobile gacha games encourage are no problem. But heaven forbid a woman has a cleavage with exposed skin. That’s where the line should be drawn.
This just shows that China isn’t exactly a model for gaming fans to idolize, even as Japanese giants like Square Enix, Capcom, and SEGA embrace Western identity politics, prioritizing inclusivity, “accessible” gameplay (i.e., dumbed-down mechanics), and sanitized, censored character designs for a global audience.
Let’s not overlook Tencent, the massive Chinese conglomerate, has a stake in BlackRock’s ESG agenda, pushing companies to adopt globalist policies around inclusivity criteria. Their influence doesn’t just stop at gaming but extends into nudging entire industries toward ethical “values” over genuine consumer appeal.
This wave of censorship has turned into a PR nightmare for Amazing Seasun, whose game initially gained traction by daring to cater to actual gamers and netting financial rewards for doing so. Now, with such heavy censorship hitting Snowbreak and others, it’s no wonder players are questioning if they can trust the company with their money moving forward.
Once was already bad, but promising players there’d be no further censorship and then coming back with an even heavier crackdown not even two months later? Players are ready to jump ship. The only real way for these Chinese developers to regain global players’ trust is to branch out and establish non-Chinese servers or independent offshoots to guarantee that Chinese censorship will never escape the communist echo chamber.
Sure, modifying game files may reduce the sting of censored outfits, but with both of Snowbreak‘s latest interactive scenes now off the table, there’s almost no chance of preserving the game’s original appeal come Update 2.3 and that’s the real tragedy here.
