Genshin Impact is impacted by Chinese censorship on a global scale, Kotaku reports. The censorship acts as a means to prevent users from writing certain words in the in-game chat, in compliance with the Chinese rules.
Certain words are covered in asterisks as soon as they’re written, and those include more politically sensible words such as Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, but even several that look inoffensive. Among those, you can find “enemies,” and even “words” itself, most likely because they could be linked to the act of censoring the latest Internet sensation.
This is nothing new to gaming, as China has strict rules for releasing games over its territory. We had discussed the matter with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, where gamers had somehow managed to get import copies and spread the word of the Hong Kong cause through it.
On Twitter, analyst Daniel Ahmad has explained why and how this is happening on Genshin Impact. MiHoYo is a Mainland China-based developer, and as such, it has to comply with local rules to publish games.
These rules state that games cannot contain “anything that threatens China’s national unity,” says the analyst. Taiwan and Hong Kong are being ruled out from games since their sole existence is seen as a threat to national unity, and that’s why they can’t be in games at all.
MiHoYo has refused to comment on the matter, expectedly. Despite these limitations, Genshin Impact has been welcomed with a warm welcome, as it has generated $60 million in its launch week only.