Ubisoft was forced to recall Collector's Edition copies of PC game
Silent Hunter 5: Battle Of The Atlantic in Germany due to "World War II symbols" that were not edited out in accordance with German law.
The publisher failed to properly remove a portion of
Silent Hunter 5's World War II symbols, presumably Nazi symbols such as swastika flags, in the game's Collector's Edition,
according to a report from German website ComputerBase
translated by Blues News.
Both the standard release and Collector's Edition (which includes special packaging, an official guide, a physical map of the Battle of the Atlantic, the game's soundtrack, and unique submarines/enemy skins) shipped in Europe and North America last week. Ubisoft did not recall
Silent Hunter 5's standard edition, indicating that release didn't suffer the same issue.
German criminal law prohibits the distribution of video games with Nazi references such as flags, uniforms, insignia, and even forms of greeting used outside of a genuine historical context. Germany banned the sale of id Software's
Wolfenstein 3D for this reason in 1994, confiscating copies of the PC and Atari Jaguar editions.
Activision Blizzard, which published a follow-up to
Wolfenstein 3D, also
recalled its game in Germany last September after discovering Nazi symbols that were not removed from the game during its localization process despite specific efforts to identify and replace the icons.
