Capcom: "Accidental" Resident Evil 5 island review restriction is "not relevant"

Capcom has told VG247 today that a restriction on Resident Evil 5 reviews in the UK - that sought to stop journalists talking about or showing a "native village" in the game's third chapter - was "accidentally" imposed and "is actually pointless".

No such restriction was placed on US journalists.

It emerged in Friday night that UK reviewers had been told not to mention the section, where players first encounter spear-wielding African enemies.

Here's what we asked on the subject this morning:

1. Why were reviewers told not to mention or show the island section of the third chapter in their pieces?
2. What other restrictions were placed on reviewers, and why?

And here's Capcom's statement in full, supplied by UK PR manager, Leo Tan:

First let me say that the restriction you listed was one of many restrictions in place for the review of Resident Evil 5. We did in fact supply an entire page of restrictions. This is common practice in the games industry, and we do it for all our games. Every publisher does it, as far as I'm aware. We do this to protect the integrity of our games.

There's nothing worse than spoilers being published before the game is even out, and we'd rather that people who buy our games get the chance to discover the game in their own time, not when a magazine or website chooses to expose what happens. Our customers' experience is paramount.

To answer your second question first, we also restricted the final chapter's content, anything you unlock when you finish the game, any strategy the journalist might have used to defeat any of the bosses and numerous plot details. Again, this is standard practice, and I don't think anyone who buys our games would disagree with this as being an important practice to maintain.

As to that specific restriction, in truth it was actually a restriction from the preview build that was accidentally carried over into the review document, and wasn't one that the US team used. There is actually nothing in that section that you encounter that is not present in later parts of the game, so the restriction is actually pointless and not relevant.

And that's that. The game's out on Friday for PS3 and 360.