Aw, man f**k censorship: Germany & Video Games

How does Germany handle video games about nazis?

I, like many, have enjoyed going through the classic Wolfenstein games shooting up Nazi hideouts and battle supernatural forces. These games have been around for a while, but it may surprise you that the latest iteration of this series "Wolfenstein: The New Order" is the only game in the series that has been allowed to be sold in Germany. Now there is some obvious reasoning behind this, but mostly it has to do with the Strafgesetzbuch Sektion 86a. A law that prohibits any use of Nazi symbolism outside of scientific research or art. Interestingly enough this symbolism isn't just your swastika armbands and SS insignia, this symbolism also adheres to language. In order to have the game sold in Germany the makers of the game had to not only strip out ALL Nazi symbols, but they had to censor the language of good ol' B.J. and his cohorts, but not in the way you might think.

The censorship here has to do with the symbolism of the words themselves, this is interesting as I would argue that these changes create a disconnect from the real Nazi backstory, enough so that the language that is used (although real German) has aspects of a naming language. These word clusters that have been removed and replaced with euphemisms are designed similarly to when naming languages are placed in Sci-Fi. They are a place holder and not meant to add depth to the world building, but there to give a proper name to something.

"Thanks. You can go. Drive"