A modder has restored Guilty Gear Strive's original China-related lore entry following a backlash to developer Arc System Works' decision to stealth remove it.

As Eurogamer reported last week, a recent Guilty Gear Strive patch stealth removed reference to Uyghur, Tibet and Taiwan in a China-related lore entry.

Neither Guilty Gear Strive publisher Bandai Namco nor developer Arc System Works have commented, despite repeated requests from Eurogamer.

Strive includes an in-game glossary, which itself includes a large number of lore entries to help players understand its convoluted backstory.

The lore entry in question, "International affairs after the Crusades", originally mentioned Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, and Uygher, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Mongolia and Siberia in its text.

Two sentences were altered. Here's the first in original form:

"Countries that had high population density and tended to import their foods, such as Korea, Taiwan and Singapore could not solve their nation's problems with the availability of energy alone."

"Countries that had high population density and tended to import their foods could not solve their nation's problems with the availability of energy alone."

The second sentence in question was originally:

"China has further expanded their borders to encompass Uygher, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Mongolia and Siberia - regions with lower populations but a lot of natural resources."

"The Federation of China has further expanded their borders to encompass nearby regions with lower populations but a lot of natural resources."

Without comment from publisher or developer it's impossible to know the true reason for the change, but many have suggested it was influenced by the Chinese market.

As Chris Tapsell reported as part of Eurogamer's sweeping investigation, Video games in China: beyond the great firewall, under Chinese law, video games can't contain anything that "threatens China's national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity", harm "the nation's reputation, security or interests" or include anything that "harms public ethics" or China's "culture and traditions".

Why these countries specifically? China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Uyghur population. China has also been accused of "coercing" hundreds of thousands of people in Tibet into military-style training centres. And the Chinese government sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that will, eventually, be part of the country again, whereas many Taiwanese disagree.

Now, a modder known as KingKrouch has stepped in. Their mod restores the original log in Guilty Gear's glossary, including the mention of Uyghur, Tibet and Taiwan.

The "GG-World Log 311 Decensor" mod is "for those who pre-ordered the game and already played enough to where they can't refund it to protest against corporations that support the human rights violations and colonisation that the P.R.C has been doing", KingKrouch wrote in accompanying text.

We want to make Eurogamer better, and that means better for our readers - not for algorithms. You can help! Become a supporter of Eurogamer and you can view the site completely ad-free, as well as gaining exclusive access to articles, podcasts and conversations that will bring you closer to the team, the stories, and the games we all love. Subscriptions start at £3.99 / $4.99 per month.

Wesley is deputy editorial director of ReedPop. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Please enable JavaScript to see comments.

UPDATE: Coming to PC and Xbox Series X/S as well as PlayStation.

Dead Space creator's sci-fi horror The Callisto Protocol is out in December

And there's a new gameplay trailer.

Stray launches next month, included in pricier PlayStation Plus tiers on day one

Final Fantasy 16 will release in summer 2023

Feature | Viewing our place in the world through Cloud Gardens

And a bit about Islands of Abandonment.

UPDATE: Coming to PC and Xbox Series X/S as well as PlayStation.

Dead Space creator's sci-fi horror The Callisto Protocol is out in December

And there's a new gameplay trailer.

Stray launches next month, included in pricier PlayStation Plus tiers on day one

Premium only | Inside video game cookbooks with one of the biz's top chefs

Premium only | Chatting Castlevania in the inaugural Eurogamer Game Club

Premium only | Off Topic: This year's UK Eurovision entry really reminded me of one of the weird classics of sci-fi

I'm up in space, man...

Premium only | Off Topic: I want Netflix to spend all its money on game shows

Buy things with globes on them

And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store!

Bad puns and video games since 1999.

Copyright © 2022 Gamer Network Limited, a ReedPop company.

All rights reserved. No part of this site or its content may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder.