AdHoc Studio seemingly takes responsibility for Dispatch’s censorship on Switch

In what should finally bring an end to the Dispatch censorship controversy, developers AdHoc Studio has claimed responsibility for the complete censoring of nudity and swearing in the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

After much back and forth between Nintendo and Adhoc, the developer’s co-founder and Chief Studio Officer, Nick Herman, issued a lengthy statement saying that the studio is “truly sorry for the situation” and that “lots of lessons have been learned.” 

He also added that some changes to the censorship should be sorted in the coming weeks.

Why was Dispatch censored in the first place?

In the opening part of the statement, Herman discussed the studio’s initial shock that its game was going to be censored, while titles like The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk are uncensored on the platform.

“As Nintendo states, any game that’s going to be on the Nintendo platform needs to ‘meet [Nintendo’s] established content and platform guidelines’. This is the key point. Nintendo has content guidelines. Our game didn’t meet those guidelines, so we made changes that would allow us to release on their platform.”

“We initially assumed, like some of you, that because games like Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk are on the platform with similar types of uncensored mature content, Dispatch would be allowed to do the same. During the porting process it became clear that was not the case. So we asked that we include a disclaimer on the store page to inform customers that content would be different than on other platforms. We worked with Nintendo to get storefront language approved.”

Herman also discussed why there was not more of a warning that the game would be censored

One of the most controversial aspects behind the censorship was that many fans had no idea about the censorship until the game came out on Switch. This meant that those who pre-ordered the episodic thriller felt misled.

Herman also discusses this in the statement:

“It was our intent to go out of our way to tell people looking to buy the game that the content was censored. Wires got crossed and we put the disclaimer in the field literally titled ‘Disclaimer,’ instead of the ‘About the Game’ section. We didn’t catch this until after the launch when we saw people saying we should have called out the changes on the store page, and we went to go make sure it was there. It technically has been the entire time, just in the absolute worst spot that makes it look like we were trying to hide it.”

Dispatch will have have some things uncensored on Switch in the coming weeks

Herman rounded off the statement on a positive note: “we’re already working with Nintendo on a path forward. While we can’t make any specific promises just yet, we’re confident we’ll be able to push an update to address at least some of the censored content”. 

Herman suggested that these changes should be addressed in “weeks not days.”

In what has been a bit of a rough week for AdHoc, its eventual transparency and regret for the situation should help mend any damaged relations it has with its playerbase.