In this article, we talked about Diablo III and its China-based name change. In short, Chinese laws prohibit certain content from being present in games, leading retailers to market Diablo III as “Big Pineapple” instead.

It seems weird, but this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In fact, a variety of memorable titles have gone by very different names in countries beyond their original release. Here’s a list of some of our faves:

Apparently, censors in the UK were unhappy with the title to Rockstar’s school-based game, and requested a name change. Rockstar went with Canis Canem Edit—Latin for “Dog eat dog” and the slogan of the school featured in the game.

Bionic Commando was originally about killing Nazis. Lots of them. However, all Nazi references were removed in the English localization, and the title was changed to reflect the changes. The game turned from a weird exercise in cloning Hitler to a generic, but classic, shoot-em-up.

Most people know about this one, but what’s funny is the reasoning: Capcom senior vice president Joseph Marici changed the name in North America simply because he hated the old title. Seriously: “That title was horrible. So I came up with Mega Man, and they liked it enough to keep using it for the U.S. games.”

Of course, this is just a few—tons of games have different titles based on their locations. What are some of your favorites, and why were they changed?

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