Publisher and developer CD Projekt Red may be in hot water yet again, as leaked Cyberpunk 2077 source code reportedly suggests that censorship flags used in the RPG’s Chinese version were tagged with the name Winnie the Pooh.
A small reference to Winnie the Pooh previously saw horror game Devotion pulled from stores shortly after release. Since 2013, the cartoon bear has been used to mock Chinese President Xi Jinping which, as you can probably tell, doesn’t sit all that well with the state’s censors.
The discovery was made by Reddit user ranoboBP, who linked to an image that they claim comes from 4chan threads discussing the leaked Cyberpunk 2077 source code.
Next to a list of censorship flags targeting content that depicts homosexuality, gore, drug use, and other similar subjects, one flag, broadly referring to China, is tagged with the name “WinnieThePooh.” Whether or not this is actually the case in the RPG’s release version or not is hard to tell, at the moment.
This has led other users to speculate that CD Projekt-owned storefront Gog.com could end up banned in China. While that seems like a bit of a stretch – Cyberpunk 2077 being the prime target in this case – it wouldn’t be entirely surprising.
When the name was used in Devotion – albeit in a considerably less subtle way – Chinese players responded with fairly visceral reactions. Gog.com actually walked back its decision to be part of Devotion’s re-release earlier this year, which some users saw as pandering to China.
CDPR has yet to release a statement on the matter, and there’s a chance that the image shared on Reddit may not be genuine. However, if it proves to be the actual source code, this could mark yet another troubled moment in Cyberpunk 2077’s post-launch journey.
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