Valve has reversed course regarding an effective ban of Spike Chunsoft and MAGES' visual novelChaos;Head Noah, and the game is once again planned to release on Steam.Spike Chunsoftconfirmed the news on social media, even providing a statement from Valve in which the company acknowledged its mistake and is ensuring similar mistakes won’t happen in the future. The reasons forChaos;Head Noah’s effective ban on Steam, however, remain a mystery.This past week Spike Chunsoft announced to its fans thatChaos;Head Noahwould not be released on Steam as had been previously announced. Spike Chunsoft explained that Valve told the publisher that there were certain issues with the game that needed to be changed before it would be allowed on thePC gamingplatform. Spike Chunsoft said it would not make the requested changes, meaningChaos;Head Noahwould not be released on Steam. The plan was to find a different way to releaseChaos;Head Noahin its intended form.RELATED:Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Coming from Danganronpa CreatorThat changed on Thursday when Spike Chunsoft announced that Valve has had a change of heart.MAGES’Chaos;Head Noahwill be released on Steam as originally planned on October 7 with no changes. Spike Chunsoft went so far as saying that it believes Valve’s decision was due to fans' “unwavering support” of the Science Adventure Series and those anxious to play the game.
Valve’s statement to Spike Chunsoft was also shared, in which it confirmed that the content review team “re-examined"Chaos;Head Noahand “decided to reverse course.” Further,Valvesays that it “examined the process that led to the previous decision” … “and made some changes to avoid situations like this in the future.” It’s awfully ambiguous about the situation and leans more toward partner relations than content review, but the end result is still thatChaos;Head Noahwill be available on Steam as previously planned.
The entire situation came as a major surprise, not just to Spike Chunsoft but to fans of visual novels and Steam in general. Valve is, historically, very lenient regardingwhat kind of content is released on Steam. It does have red flag topics, like child sexualization, which has led to several visual novel and anime games being banned or censored in the past.Chaos;Head Noahdoes, notably, feature some very mature content that does touch on these subjects contextually. That very well could be the reason Valve banned it as it was.
Chaos;Head Noahis just one game in a long series ofpopular visual novelsfrom an esteemed developer, with both MAGES and Spike Chunsoft having dozens of other titles available on Steam. That likely played into Valve’s decision to re-evaluate its choice, as well as the prompt move to allowChaos;Head Noahon Steam after all. The Science Adventure Series has been saved, for now.
Chaos;Head Noahis available now on PC and Switch.
