I honestly was not informed of it being included in this hotfix, so I wasn’t able to include it in the notes. I added that small line to the notes this morning, knowing we’d be putting out a fuller statement on it. I agree, I should’ve also included a note that there would be a further statement on it, in order to make it more clear.
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Enough of this lies…im done with this game.
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This is true, but this does not address the fact that the game was rated by the USK for PC in 2022 and received a perfectly good 18 rating with all gore, including ragdolls, intact. We are still not being told the whole story here and that’s infuriating in the sense that the people responsible obviously thought it wasn’t even worth mentioning that some regions would now receive gore restrictions. Not a word of that in the Hotfix notes, you weren’t even told! And to introduce something like that in a hotfix is bad dev style on top of that. And now we get a “that’s on us”, but then we are STILL being denied information.
Why is the existing USK rating not good enough anymore? What changed? Did they rate the PS5 version differently and you had to disable ragdoll interaction for it to get a USK 18 seal, and then you wanted one version for all platforms so you pushed that to XBOX and PC as well because, well, easier? If so: Still not ok.
Here, this is from the official USK database:
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If I get you right:
The company you work for & you should do work for the community - isn’t communicating with you adequate ?
And:
Where is the answer on my second point I’ve wrote ?
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I think the following question would be important to have an answer to:
Why did the PC version, specifically the steam PC version, have to change now? It was approved by the USK on release, in the state it was in then (with full gore and ragdoll manipulation). What changed?
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The conspiracy theory is gonna be that Sony wanted a “cleaner” version but also did not want other platforms to be better in customers eyes. 
Shizo posting but if they can’t give us an answer, we’ll make our own.
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Then why would it apply only to Germany and Austria…
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Probably for the same reason Sony wanted to force people to create PSN accounts for HD2 after selling it in countries that are IP blocked from making PSN accounts, honestly. Sony has got issues.
It’s all speculation anyway but I don’t see this standing in the way of that theory is all. “But Sony would be irrational” is very in character and makes sense.
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Sony stated b4 release that a PSN acc would be mandatory tho.
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Fully aware, not sure why that would change my point. Not really the point of this thread though anyways, just drawing the comparison that Sony is known to do stupid nonsensical things.
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How USK is referenced in the Salzburg Jugendgesetz
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Could you please check where this information comes from? I know that Wikipedia states it, but the source on Wikipedia is Gesetzlicher Jugendschutz | BuPP which in turn points to the Salzburger Jugendgesetz (Salzburgian youth-law) in the current version.
I’ve read through the paragraphs referenced on bupp.at and also searched the whole law for “USK”, “Software” and “Deutschland” (Germany). USK and Software had no hits in the whole text. Germany was mentioned twice in §38(2).
Unfortunately I did not find an official English translation of the text so I will provide a link and the original here:
“(2) Programme, die auf Grund des §§ 11 und 12 Jugendschutzgesetz, Gesetzblatt der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2002 I S 2730, in der Fassung des Gesetzes vom 10. März 2017, Gesetzblatt der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2017 I S 420, nicht freigegeben oder für Kinder und Jugendliche nur ab einem bestimmten Alter freigegeben sind, gelten auch im Land Salzburg als nicht oder nur ab einem bestimmten Alter freigegeben. Die Landesregierung kann jedoch auf Antrag des Eigentümers bzw der Eigentümerin oder des bzw der sonst darüber Verfügungsberechtigten eine hievon abweichende Entscheidung treffen.”
RIS - Salzburger Jugendgesetz - Landesrecht konsolidiert Salzburg, Fassung vom 28.11.2024
Translated with DeepL.com (free version):
(2) Programs that are not released on the basis of §§ 11 and 12 of the Youth Protection Act, Law Gazette of the Federal Republic of Germany 2002 I p 2730, in the version of the Act of 10 March 2017, Law Gazette of the Federal Republic of Germany 2017 I p 420, or are only released for children and young people from a certain age, are also deemed not to be released or only released from a certain age in the province of Salzburg. However, the provincial government may make a different decision at the request of the owner or the person otherwise entitled to dispose of the property.
So Salzbourgian law only references/uses the German youth protection act to decide for which age a program is to be released, or if it should not be released at all.
Since the PC (and XBOX/Microsoft) is already rated and released with “Keine Jugendfreigabe” (https://usk.de/?s=darktide) this should not matter for PS5 as well.
Anyhow. Maybe Fatshark aims to get a different USK rating by removing ragdoll?
Since the USK apparantly must be done for each platform, maybe the USK is now more strict than they were last year?
So if the USK now insists Fatshark removes ragdoll on dead enemies for the PS5 release and Fatshark needs to be consistent in their versions for all platforms, then there’s nothing we can do about it. Except for PC-masterrace who can mod the game (hopefully…).
Still leaves me confused. Did the USK want ragdoll removed before and Fatshark just didn’t comply and no one noticed? (As @Heretical_Cactus already stated).
Edit: After reading up on the Dead Island 2 situation I honestly think this is it. Dead Island 2 had the same restriction before it was released in Germany (and maybe nobody there checked for Austrian idiocies). Now with the PS5 release the USK got a new look at Darktide and is now enforcing their previous ruling.
In any case I got another reason to be pissed about Austria’s federalism and Salzburg in particular. Not that I didn’t have enough reasons already.
Time to learn about modding Darktide (Since I live in Vienna it’s not even illegal)!
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Since rag dolls have been disabled on WinPC since launch, I’m very curious if the WinPC version was reviewed and approved for both it at the Steam rating. Or if the differences between the two simply weren’t noticed at the time.
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Odds are you won’t get that whole story.
This is yet another case of ObeseTuna doing something stupid, catching flak for it, and going into a full-blown panic resulting in the various PR mouth pieces (aka “Community Managers”) spinning the usual “it wasn’t really us” lines.
Its like the company can’t admit to failure…
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That’s a possibility, but then why not simply tell us that? Would shift the blame from Fatshark and could be confirmed with the USK. I just really hope @Eluvyel gets a response from them clarifying the situation - they sent an inquiry to the USK.
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Doesn’t the Windows Store/WinPC version have that for ALL regions though? It’s weird that a non-regional difference would just be pushed live onto that version if it was ever intended to just be regional censorship, but Fatshark is known to do weird stuff with what they push live I guess
Yeah, that would be best. I’ve looked on the basis for the USKs ruling but I didn’t find anything. So I guess it’s not that transperent on the specifics of the classification.
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Different rating systems within the same country? Interesting. I wasn’t aware that was a thing.
Sounds like that would cause a headache for a lot of game releases.
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If anybody was successfully getting a refund from sony after playing Darktide, please let me know what you wrote them.
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Why is there censorship specifically of post-death ragdolling? Seems incredibly random. The gore and the death animations are all fine, but the post-death ragdoll is too much? Why lol
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I have to say it’d be pretty funny if this was the case. Would reveal the USK as a shakedown racket that doesn’t actually give a single hoot what ends up being in the game (which would surely surprise everyone involved, right?)
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