The definition of horror, just like with any other abstract noun, is subjective. After all, what is normal for the spider is a nightmare for a fly caught in its web.
Similarly, the amount of fun and scares horror video games provide can vary depending on who you're asking. As such, just like the spider and the fly, what is acceptable for the average gamer is a nightmare for a casual one or a member of a country's regulatory board.
Here are some horror games deemed "too scary" for people to see.
Silent Hill: Homecoming
Gamers would probably be familiar with Konami's brand of psychological horror and gore within its Silent Hill franchise, especially with its most popular entry, Silent Hill 2.
However, the Australian government, particularly its Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), found the game to have too many mutilation sequences, particularly in the scene featuring game protagonist Alex and a notable cultist battling over an electric drill, per Sportskeeda.
The scene ends with either Alex or the cultist being drilled to their deaths head-on. (pun intended)
This scene, along with others with similar levels of mutilation, led to the game being banned in Australia in 2008, per Wired.
F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin
F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin received a similar ban from Australia's OFLC even before it was released on Feb. 10, 2009. According to Gamespot, the game has the same "high impact" violence as Silent Hill: Homecoming.
The game does feature severe levels of brutality and a disturbing tone, especially when it shows how humanlike NPCs react to being gored by mutant monstrosities in front of the player.
However, what irked the OFLC the most was the fact that the player can do acts of extreme violence of their own, such as dismemberments and throat slitting, all of which involve a considerable amount of digital blood.
F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin eventually got the green light to be distributed in Australia, though it took the Australian Classification Board (ACB) a month to do so.
Condemned: Bloodshot
Much like the first two entries on this list, Condemned: Bloodshot also got banned due to the "high impact" violence it features, especially against digital human beings, per What Culture. However, it isn't Australia that does the banning, this time around.
Germany's Federal Department For Media found the game to be harmful to young persons as it glorified inhuman acts of violence against human beings, adding that it injures a human being's dignity.
Interestingly enough, Condemned: Bloodshot is a sequel to a game Germany approved and remained as such despite being as violent as its predecessor.
The game is still banned in Germany as of press time.
Outlast 2
If you wanted Silent Hill in first-person mode, the Outlast series would fit what you're looking for. Unfortunately, Australia got this memo as well.
The game, according to Gamers Decide, showcases how demented people can be when they take religion too far and seriously. However, it received a ban that lasted only two days for another reason, and this time, it wasn't the game's fault.
The game's developer, Red barrels, accidentally sent the ACB footage from its alpha version, which had its protagonist commit "transgressive content" that was cut from the final game.
Fortunately, the accident was resolved and the game was unbanned in the country.
Left 4 Dead 2
The ban on Left 4 Dead 2 was banned by Australia's OFLC for the same reason it banned the previous entries in the list: it had "realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence" that was unsuitable for persons under 18 to play.
Aside from being as "violent" as it is, the game also features "copious amounts of blood spray and splatter, decapitations and limb dismemberment", per Kotaku.
Similarly to Condemned: Criminal Origins, Left 4 Dead 2 is a sequel to a game the OFLC deems acceptable. As such, Valve appealed to the Australian government to unban the game from their country, which led to concessions on Valve's part.
These concessions come in the form of a heavily cut version of the game until the version the whole world got was classified as R18+ in Australia, making the full release playable in the country.
The Callisto Protocol
Let's talk about more recent games. Striking Distance Studios, a video game development studio under the PUBG Corporation, had announced that its horror game, The Callisto Protocol, has been banned from Japan per the studio's official Japanese Twitter page.
According to a Game Informer article, The Callisto Protocol was too violent for it to achieve an age rating with Japan's Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO).
However, neither Striking Distance nor CERO provided detailed information as to why the game got banned apart from its violent content.
The studio promised that refunds would be issued to those that pre-ordered the game in Japan.
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