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Hailed as the “worst game possible”, one controversial Nintendo sequel has officially been banned from Steam.
First released back in 1995 as a bootleg SNES title, Hong Kong 97 was released as a way to challenge Nintendo’s strict ethical standards and high royalties.
Its creator Yoshihisa “Kowloon” Kurosawa revealed back in 2018 that it was his goal to “make the worst game possible” as a result of the troubles facing the console market during the time that Hong Kong 97 was released.
Despite initially wanting to enter the game industry, he soon discovered that it was not all it cracked up to be and so he created Hong Kong 97 due to being “sick and tired” of the gaming sphere as a whole.
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“I had an idea to create a cheap, vulgar game that would make fun of the industry,” he said.
In Hong Kong 97, players take on the role of an undercover agent who just so happens to be the long-lost relative of Bruce Lee.
Sent on a mission to kill all of the Chinese people who came from mainland China after its sovereignty was transferred from Britain, it is safe to say that this game is pretty controversial.
Not only that but Hong Kong 97 had little to no budget and was created in just a few days so it was a surprise to Kowloon when the game gained a cult following, leading to the creator themselves to tell players to stop taking it so seriously.
Nevertheless, a sequel was announced with plans for Hong Kong 2097 to make its way to Steam this December.
Described as a “mind-numbing” twin stick shooter, players would once again take on the role of Chin as he is tasked with God to wipe out the population of a fictional country known as Amurikka in order to establish a true utopia.
We can guess which country “Amurikka” is based upon and so it seems as though this game will be no less controversial than its predecessor.
With another inappropriate and “hot trash” sequel planned, this one aims to challenge the censorship which has gradually been implemented for video games over the past few years.
However, despite initially expected to drop on Steam, it has been revealed that Hong Kong 2097 has been banned from the PC storefront.
Following a drawn-out approval process, Valve has discovered that Hong Kong 2097 has an extensive amount of third-party content that it does not have the rights to.
As a result, it has been removed from Steam indefinitely.
“Steam has declined to ship Hong Kong 2097 and retired the store page,” a Tweet by publisher KaniPro Games reads.
“The reason given is 3rd party content, which is technically true.
It's unfortunate but I knew there was a chance this would happen. The game is NOT cancelled. We're already looking into Itch, GOG, and DLsite.”
As you can see, the team is looking into bringing Hong Kong 2097 to other platforms ahead of its Q1 2026 release so if you are interested in it, fear not.
