Mortal Kombat 11 Will NOT Be Sold in Japan Due To Violence

When you think of violent video games, you probably think of Mortal Kombat (or maybe Doom, I guess). The brutal fighting game franchise has a reputation for its obscene depiction of gore and violence, after all. But it seems to have gone an inch too far with Mortal Kombat 11, which appears to be pulled from Japanese store shelves.

First reported by Appauls in January, the SteamDB listing for Mortal Kombat 11 shows that the game was removed from listing on the Japanese version of the storefront. With it set to release tomorrow (April 23) and no change, that's a pretty rough sign.

Journalist Farhan Ali claims that this was the result of the Japanese games rating board CERO not allowing games with extreme violence and gore to be released in Japan. This was an issued when Resident Evil 7 released, forcing developers to censor the Japanese version to appease these rules.

NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros Entertainment have both been silent about this issue. They have not confirmed that this is actually why the game is not in Japan, nor if they intend to resolve the issue.