So after talking with the staff working on the game, this is what we're looking at in terms of a final release:
- The punishment minigame will remain as is, with a couple small tweaks. The first is that the associated audio will not be present (moans, gasps, short phrases, etc.). The second is that for certain scenes with little to no steam, some steam effects will be added back in to obscure some potentially problematic images. This will be kept to a minimum.
- No other scenes or content will be removed. As a general approach, we are being very conscious of the general tone of the game and making sure that we retain the spirit of the story and characters without taking things too far (this will mostly consist of terminology choices and character interactions here and there).
And that's all. I realize that for some people, even this will be enough to avoid the game. But I would like to note that we did get in touch with all of the rating boards about this title, providing them with sample scenes, images, and dialogue from the game. Based on their feedback, we decided these changes would be necessary in order to make a release possible in all regions.
You can believe that or not, but at this point any discussion about whether or not we REALLY talked to them or if we're actually just spineless lying cowards will be considered unproductive and off-topic, and any particularly aggressive or angry posts will be deleted or edited at my discretion. That's also all the detail I can provide, since we're still in the midst of working on it and any further detail would be subject to change.