Martha Is Dead, an upcoming first-person thriller by developer LKA and Wired Productions, won’t have parity across its versions. While the Windows PC and Xbox versions of the game will launch as its developer intended on Feb. 24, the PlayStation versions will be altered for content. Wired Productions revealed the change of plans via Twitter on Friday, just two weeks out from release.
“It is with regret that we have had to modify the experience on the PS5 and PS4 versions, with some elements no longer playable,” the developer said on Twitter. “After over four years of passion and hard work, developer LKA now required extra time to make these unplanned changes.”
While the game will hit its scheduled launch day on all platforms, physical versions of the game for PS4 and PS5 are delayed. There will be no delay for the physical or digital versions of the game on Windows PC or Xbox Series X.
As for why the game is getting censored on PlayStation, it’s currently unclear. Polygon has reached out to Sony Interactive Entertainment and will update when the company responds.
However, there is a graphic clip circulating on social media that’s making players uncomfortable. The clip involves slicing a dead woman’s face off — first on the right side, then the forehead, and then the left. The clip shows the player lifting the severed face off of her head just before it cuts.
In its statement, Wired Productions says the developer has communicated that Martha Is Dead is intended for “adult audiences only” and features “potentially discomforting scenes and themes that may distress some players”— and that the developer offers multiple in-game warnings about that content. The aforementioned clip earns its “discomforting” description, though some would argue it shouldn’t be up to PlayStation to censor that content for players. The ESRB rated Martha Is Dead as M, citing intense violence, blood and gore, sexual themes, partial nudity, and strong language.
Martha Is Dead is set in 1944, in Tuscany, near the end of World War II. A woman named Martha is found dead in the game’s opening, and players will take on the role of Martha’s twin sister in order to understand her death during one of the darkest periods of human history.
Source: Polygon
