Is GTA 6 censored in Japan or Australia?

The size difference

When pre-load opened on November 10, 2026, players compared download sizes by region. Kotaku, citing those comparisons, reported on November 11:

Version	PS5	Xbox Series X|S
Most regions	209.913 GB	209.86 GB
Japan	208.725 GB	208.74 GB
Australia and New Zealand	about 0.7 MB smaller than most regions	no figure reported

These are press figures, not numbers from Rockstar or the console makers. Kotaku wrote that it “has reached out to Take-Two for comment”; no reply had been published when we checked on November 14, 2026.

A smaller download does not by itself show what is missing. It can be cut scenes, but it can also be language files, region settings or anything else packed differently for one region.

Japan: CERO Z, rated for crime and violence

The Japanese PlayStation Store lists the game as CERO Z, which means it is not sold to anyone under 18: “18才未満の方には販売しておりません” (not sold to those under 18). The page shows two CERO content icons, crime and violence.

That is the second reason for the censorship talk. Automaton points out that the Japanese listing has no sexual content icon, while ratings in other countries mention sex scenes or sexual content. Whether that means scenes were changed for Japan, or only that CERO labelled them differently, has not been said by Rockstar, Take-Two or CERO.

The Japanese store page also says that buying a CERO Z game on the PlayStation Store requires paying by credit card.

Australia: R18+

The Australian PlayStation Store lists the game as R18+ with three consumer advice lines: “Drug Use, High Impact Violence, Sex Scenes”. R18+ is the adults-only category for games in Australia. Since sex scenes are listed, the rating itself gives no sign that they were removed there.

The Australian and New Zealand download is smaller by less than a megabyte. A dataminer named a missing file in that version; what the file does is not known.

What is not known

• Whether any scene, mission or line was changed in the Japanese or Australian version.
• Whether the difference is in the game’s content at all, or in language, legal or region files.

Both can be checked after the release on November 19, 2026. For ratings in the US and Europe, see What is GTA 6 rated?.