Sony’s recently implemented policy of censoring third party games on the PlayStation platform has finally come to a triple-A release. Capcom’s long-awaited Devil May Cry 5 was released last week on all platforms, but the game’s day-one patch on PS4 censors a cinematic scene in the game using, you guessed it, lens flare.

Keep in mind that there are slight story spoilers for Devil May Cry 5 if you choose to read further.

A few hours into the game, Dante rescues a fully nude Trish from a demon, very briefly revealing the upper portion of her posterior during the cutscene that follows. Once the day-one patch is applied to the game, a bizarre, pink-colored lens flare covers her sinful bits. The censorship applies only to the western PS4 release of Devil May Cry 5, while the Japanese version has not been censored in the same way. It should also be noted that PlayStation gamers wanting to play an uncensored Devil May Cry 5 can do so by not installing the day-one patch. There is no such censorship, via patch or otherwise, on the Xbox One and PC version of the game.

Here’s a video comparison of the scene in question, with the uncensored Japanese version first, followed by the censored western release.

Sony’s new censorship policy was introduced in 2018, and since then, several games with sexual themes (exclusively Japanese-developed games, I might add) have been affected. This led to the cancellation of Omega Labyrinth Z’s western release and gameplay modes/features being removed from both Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 Scarlet and Senran Kagura Re:Newal. The developers of Senran Kagura 7even have scrapped the project to restart from scratch as their original concept for the game would be impossible to release under Sony’s new rules. Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart was censored so much that it went from a M-rated (Mature 17+) title to an E for Everyone rating on PS4. There are also indications that the critically-acclaimed Catherine: Full Body has been changed during localization to protect consenting, paying adult customers from… something.

All these changes have been made, as explained by SIE Japan Asia President Atsushi Morita, to “meet global standards”.

This isn’t the first time that Capcom has censored one of their games via a post-release patch, either. While Capcom censored 2016’s Street Fighter V from several angles, update patch 1.04 altered Cammy’s model to make her less sexy, though it’s much harder to understand the decision to censor Devil May Cry 5 given its “mature” ESRB rating. At the time of this writing, Capcom has not made a statement addressing the censorship of Devil May Cry 5.

Devil May Cry 5 is also available on Xbox One and PC – uncensored – so if you would prefer to purchase and play the game as the creators intended, I suggest supporting one of those two platforms.