Devil May Cry is known for many things: great combat, cheesy one-liners, devils that rarely, if ever, actually cry. But it’s not known for nudity. That’s made the occasional flashes of forbidden flesh all the more noticeable in Devil May Cry 5, especially given that how much nudity you see is determined by the platform you’re playing on.
The latest game in the long-running series of instructional tapes on how to use a motorcycle as a sword features a scene in which Dante rescues his longtime partner Trish from inside an enemy. She falls from the belly of the beast, naked, and Dante catches her and lays her on the ground. Camera angles largely obscure any actual nudity, but players have discovered that in the Western PlayStation 4 version of the game, this scene is mildly censored, with lens flare from Dante’s motorcycle blotting out Trish’s butt.
However, in the Xbox One, PC, and Japanese PS4 versions, this scene remains uncensored. Here’s a video demonstrating the two different versions of the scene from Naughty Gaming (warning: NSFW and contains slight spoilers):
Even more strangely, there’s another scene in the game—again featuring a butt, the most obscene of crevices we all share—that’s censored in every version and territory. In this scene, another character, Lady, briefly appears naked, viewed from behind. Here, reports Eurogamer, lens flare censors her backside no matter what version you’re playing.
Some people are, of course, up in arms about this relatively minor change that happens to involve female nudity, but many are just bewildered. Why the consistently inconsistent handling of butts? Why one particular scene and not another? Why this game, when other recent PS4 games like Metro Exodus have featured more explicit nudity? Kotaku reached out to both Sony and Capcom to find out more, but neither replied. For now, then, it’s impossible to say, though it could have something to do with an alleged new Sony policy that affected the more overtly sexually-charged Senran Kagura last year.
Until we know more, I feel that we should at least lament the fact that a) there’s no comparable male nudity on display in Devil May Cry 5, and b) unlike in DmC: Devil May Cry, no slices of pizza are used to cover up dicks. Not even one! Come on, Capcom. At least get creative with your censorship.