Kratos, a Spartan general and war god Ares' maronette is the involuntary hero of the game God Of War which was released in 2005 for Sony's Playstation 2.

Since the game is pretty violent, it faced some problems for the European release - therefore it had to be censored a little. Even though you on the one hand might understand the censorship, it still seems to be a little senseless when you keep in mind that the rest of the game (also the cutscenes) were not censored at all. The censorship also regards the European HD-Remake Version of the Game


This is a comparison between the uncensored US version (Mature 17+) and the slightly censored Austrian version (PEGI 18+) (= European version).

Sacrifice

During the game, Kratos enters Pandora's temple to get Pandora's Box.

At a later point in the game you have to offer a sacrifice - exactly this scene was censored. If you in the American version offer a human soldier as sacrifice, you in the censored version use a zombie for the exact same purpose.

At this point you see a short cutscene where you see a few cages with humans trapped inside of them. In the censored version, all of these people are zombies. The cages are attached to the roof with chains.

Uncensored US Version:	Censored European Version:

After you got one of the cages down from the ceiling, you see another cutscene where the camera zooms to the cage with the captive inside of it.



Now you have to push the cage into the sacrifice-room onto a switch, so that the flames move towards the cage.



If the cage was placed correctly, you have to pull the lever which then activates the sacrifice-procedure. Another cutscene starts.



This cutscene shows the soldier/zombie burning. The camera zooms to the cage and then moves above it while the captive twists in pain. In the American version the soldier screams and begs the gods to spare his life. In the censored version, the zombie makes some weird noises.




Farewell Letter

The farewell letter which you find next to the suicide (at the left side of the sacrificial altar) was slightly altered.
In the American version it says that no human being is able to do what the Gods ask him to do and that not even Pandora's Box is worth the price - the letter of course is talking about offering a human sacrifice.
In the European version the text says that you have to deal with monsters that oncce were human beings. Again, not even Pandora's Box is worth the price in the suicide's opinion. He says that he knows that he's weak but that he's unable to do what they ask him to do. He failed.

Unzcensored US Version:	Censored European Version:

Savepoint

In the European version, one of the savepoints (which is close to the cages) was deleted. Thus, there's no way for you to save the game during this part, so it's a quite long and annoying process if you want to repeat the sacrifice.

Uncensored US Version:	Censored European Version: