PC version of Agony will have optional patch to remove console 'censorship'

Hellish horror game Agony was due out on March 30, but it was delayed late in the day and developer Madmind Studio hasn't yet announced a new release date. Part of the reason is that all the violence, torture and nudity is making it difficult for the team to get the age rating that they want. In a Kickstarter post Madmind explained that, after speaking with age-rating companies, it's had to tone down certain sections of the game in order to obtain a Mature rating, rather than an Adult Only (AO) rating. An AO rating would mean the game couldn't release on consoles.

The studio says that all versions of the game will be the same, so the PC version will be toned down too. However, it has also confirmed a "special, optional patch for PC that will remove the aforementioned 'censorship'", which players will be able to download after release. The patch won't be available on consoles, so Madmind is offering Kickstarter backers that paid for the console game a chance to switch to the PC version. The more, the merrier.

As for what will actually be censored, Madmind is keeping quiet to avoid spoilers, but it says that everything that's been shown off in the trailer will remain in the game. That means you can still expect a haunting, gory time in Hell with plenty of impaling, eye-gouging and a terrifying Red Goddess.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.