Wolfenstein 3D Devs Remember How Nintendo's Strict Censors Made Their Lives 'Miserable'
The Super Nintendo port of Wolfenstein 3D is notorious among retro fans for being the worst version of the pioneering shooter. On top of the console's technical limitations and lousy controls, it was heavily censored, leading to some bizarre artistic choices.
A new clip from FPS: First Person Shooter, an upcoming documentary about the rise of the genre with words from more than 45 well-known developers, showcases the origins of Wolfenstein 3D. Toward the end of the clip, it delves into the Super Nintendo port and what a nightmare it was deal with Nintendo censors."
"We knew we would have to get rid of some of the Nazi paraphernalia due to the fact that they wanted to sell the game in Germany," programmer Becky Heineman remembers. "But the most notable thing was that we had German Shepherds in the original version of Wolfenstein 3D come ahead and bite you, and Nintendo's censors were totally like, 'You can't shoot dogs.' So we had to change them to rats."
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Id Software dutifully turned the dogs into giant rats, but that wasn't enough to satisfy Nintendo's censorship team. They pointed that when the rats attacked the hero BJ Blazkowicz, their mouths appeared to be bleeding. Id Software argued that the red smudge was actually the rat's tongue, but to no avail.
"So we had to remove the tongues from the rats because it reminded Nintendo of blood," Heineman says. "The censors made our lives miserable. So we had to do several versions
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