Battlefield 4 has been banned in China,Well what does that mean? In other countries when a game is banned it’s not allowed on store shelves and can’t be bought & sold online,Total bummer right? But this is the Chinese ban we’re talking about, so expect a lot more.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture has issued a notice which prohibits the sale of the game and downloading any materials related to the game including demos and patches. Not only that, it is also illegal to report any news pertaining to the title, and the official name of the title in Chinese, “ZhanDi4″, has been included in the censored words list on the Chinese social networking site Weibo.
China does have it’s reasons for going ballistic on Battlefield 4 though,The main antagonists in the game are the Chinese and the campaign sees the protagonists leave a lot of dead Chinese soldiers in their wake. The country is very proactive in burying anything that seems like a threat to its culture, and Battlefield 4 is their latest target.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture has cited “cultural encroachment” as the main reason for the super-ban, saying, “The content of (developer) DICE’s game slanders the good image of the People’s Liberation Army. The scenario of [Admiral] Zhang and his renegade general is particularly wrong; it is hard for many Chinese players to accept.”
The move comes on the eve of the release of the China Rising DLC for Battlefield 4. However, publisher EA wont be too worried about this. The game was never officially released in China, and though the long-standing console ban was recently lifted in the country,the market is still not at the stage where everybody gets worked up.
