Duel Princess Producer Hints Game Was Banned From Steam

Duel Princess is a typical Galge / Bishoujo game that was just released this January 13 on Nintendo Switch in English, but it looks like the game got denied a simultaneous PC Steam release.

Duel Princess on Nintendo Switch explained

If you haven’t heard of Duel Princess, it’s the latest game from Qureate. A Japanese developer which focuses on Bishoujo games or Galge. As in games with cute anime girls, mainly visual novels. And releases them on Switch and PC.

One noteworthy point is that Qureate releases all its games with English localization. The studio’s games are rather short and low-priced overall.

Duel Princess is Qureate’s latest work. It mixes the studio’s usual cute girls formula with tower defense and card roguelike inspired by Slay The Spire and the like. Duel Princess has a clothing damage system and “punishing the girls” scenes too, similar to Criminal Girls or a lot of games from back when Galge on Nintendo DS, PSP, and PS Vita all included touch mechanics.

At the end of the day, Duel Princess isn’t that much raunchier than what Qureate usually does, but it looks like the game still got banned from Steam.

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Qureate and Duel Princess producer hints game was denied Steam release

Explaining why Duel Princess was not released on Steam, the Qureate official Twitter shared a peculiar message this week. The English part of the tweet simply says that “The release of Duel Princess for Steam is currently undecided due to various reasons.”

However, the Japanese part of the tweet adds “We hope you’ll enjoy the game on Nintendo Switch. Maybe it was too naughty for Steam…”

Furthermore, the producer of Qureate Yujiro Usuda added in a quote retweet:

“We hoped to go as far as possible without getting the game banned, but it seems we went way overboard. We will reflect on this and start making solid games that follow the rules… Just kidding, we’ll keep making games that’ll make you solid for sure lol, so we hope you’ll enjoy our latest work”.

It’s far from the first time that Steam arbitrarily releases – or doesn’t release – anime-stylized games with sexual fanservice like this. It’s sadly not the first time a game gets banned and not the last. There is no consistency at all behind Steam’s decisions in those cases.

Though everyone knows for sure that anime characters wearing school uniforms + violence or fanservice are a no-go and consistently trigger Steam’s ban hammer.

It’s even funnier considering another Qureate game with just as much exposure will be launching on Steam this January 21, Nin Nin Days 2.

What do you guys think of this situation? Let us know in the comments. Duel Princess is available on Nintendo Switch worldwide for $25. You can watch the game’s introduction trailer below.