https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPMhL6CCyA
Users on NeoGaf have noticed select songs that play in Forza Horizon 4 have had lyrics censored.
“DynamiteCop!” posted a thread with their findings on May 19th. The user notes words related to drugs and religion have been removed from select songs within the last month. In addition they initially believed there was no indication of these alterations occurring in change logs.
“From words like “high” and “stardusted hazy” taken completely out of context as if they’re supposed to relate to drugs, and worse than this the word “God” of all things has been completely removed from Never Say Die by Chvrches.
This editing has all taken place within the last month, the songs were not like this previously and there’s ZERO changelog notes to account for. so they ninja edited these songs. This is just what I know of from the Pulse radio station, who knows about the other 80+ songs on the other stations. These sequences repeat multiple times during the course of the songs but I’ve isolated them to singular clips.
What in the hell is happening to our society?”
DynamiteCop! then links to a YouTube video highlighting the changes. You can find that above. The three songs in question are Fake it Til You Make It (Dreamers), Shooting Star (Anna Yvette) and Never Say Die (Chvrches). The thread also included links to the original songs for comparison via their official YouTube accounts or VEVO YouTube accounts.
Later in the same thread, DynamiteCop! noticed there was in fact a change log on March 26th.
Version Number
- PC: 1.274.237.2
- Xbox: 1.274.243.0
Cross-Platform Fixes
- Reduced the requirement to earn the top tier rewards in the Festival Playlist from 100% to 80%
- Fixed some credit exploits when using route blueprint
- Further edits to songs for ESRB requirements
The user then theorizes this is so the game can “get a Teen rating”. However the game is currently rated E for Everyone by the ESRB.
The changes were noticed back in April by a user on the official Forza Subreddit, though it only gained 7 upvotes and 12 replies.
We will keep you posted as we learn more.
Forza Horizon 4 is available now on Windows PC (via Microsoft Store) and Xbox One.
