According to E-Sports website FOMOS.kr, StarCraft II’s more offensive content, including blood, foul language and depiction of drug use (smoking in this case) will be censored and removed when it releases in South Korea later this year, all in an effort to receive a favourable (‘Age 12’) age rating.

In April it was revealed that Blizzard’s upcoming StarCraft II real-time strategy game had been given an “18 and up” age-rating by South Korea’s Games Rating Board (GRB), citing the game’s levels of violence, foul language and depiction of drug use as reasons for the strict rating.

This after Blizzard’s attempts to lower the GRB’s previous “15 and up” age rating evaluation based on an earlier build of StarCraft II.

Blizzard decided to appeal the “18 and up” age rating by submitting a new release candidate to the GRB in order to “address the Game Ratings Board’s concerns.”

We now find out what this means, as it turns out that the South Korean version of StarCraft II will exclude scenes containing smoking and vulgar language depicted in the singleplayer campaign videos. Additionally, any blood appearing in the game will be black.

These measures have resulted in StarCraft II receiving an age rating of ‘12’ from the South Korean GRB, which is exactly where the rating needs to be in order to maximise the game’s audience and potential sales, and attempt to continue the StarCraft franchise’s E-Sports phenomenon in the country.

According to Blizzard (from a translation of the original post on FOMOS.kr):

“Since Starcraft 2 was originally developed to be a game adolescents could enjoy, we’re very pleased with the Game Rating Board’s decision. … In the remaining time until SC2 goes on sale, we’ll do our best to continue to perfect the game so that even more fans can enjoy it.”

Blizzard may decide to release two separate version of StarCraft II in South Korea – one for adults and one for younger players, but as of right now, the only version on the cards is the censored ‘Age 12’ version of the game for the country.

Source: FOMOS.kr and TeamLiquid via 1Up