The Japanese version of the hit visual novel game The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty was pulled from the Japanese Nintendo Switch store and is no longer available for purchase as of March 17, 2025. The suspension happened only four days after the game’s worldwide Switch release.
Published by 2P Games and developed by ZerocreationGames, The Hungry Lamb is a dark historical visual novel that originally released on Steam in 2024. The game became a hit soon after launch, selling over 1 million copies and earning an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam (96% out of 42,000+ reviews are positive at the time of writing).
The Hungry Lamb’s story depicts heavy themes including murder, cannibalism and human trafficking, which earned the game a 16+ IARC rating for distribution in Japan. However, according to publisher 2P Games, this age rating is being reconsidered post-launch, which is what caused The Hungry Lamb’s sudden suspension. The revised rating has not been announced yet, but judging by the fact that the game was pulled from the store, it’s highly likely that it will be bumped up to an 18+ rating.
The Nintendo eShop allows publishers to simply correct the rating of a game without interrupting sales, but not in cases where the rating needs to be raised by two or more levels, or when the new rating is expected to be 18+. It seems that following its release, The Hungry Lamb was re-examined for sensitive content, and it was determined that it did not fit into an IARC 16+ rating. For comparison, the game is rated ESRB Teen in the US, PEGI 18 in the UK and Mature (15+) in Australia.
The Steam store page warns players of the following:
Combat, weapon imagery, bones/bones, derogatory language, excruciating pain, criminal behavior, bleeding, violent behavior, accidental death, bodily injury, corpses, violent depictions, suicide, including partial nudity, depiction of sexual violence (rape, abuse), and alcohol consumption without any bloody or bloody scenes.
2P Games is currently working to get The Hungry Lamb listed on the Japanese Switch store again, but the game is still available for PC (Steam) and the Nintendo Switch in other regions.
