By Kotaku | Created at 2026-10-09 13:51:05 | Updated at 2026-10-09 15:06:13
1 hour ago
Hellraiser: Revival is not afraid to go there. Like the Clive Barker horror series its based on, the survival horror game has all manner of gore, violence, and sex. And now a YouTuber’s been banned over the gameplay they uploaded to their channel from it. The gameplay in question apparently even had black boxes covering up the actual NC-17 stuff.
French content creator J0nathan shared the ban notice from YouTube on X (via IGN). It stated that his channel was removed from the Google-owned platform for violating its policies against sex and nudity. “Explicit content that’s meant to be sexually gratifying isn’t allowed on YouTube,” the ban read.
Hellraiser features full nudity at points, including the beginning of the game, so you might think this is not surprising, but J0nathan told IGN that these parts of the video were censored with black bars. There was a “not for kids” label put on the video but it wasn’t age-gated.
Bonjour @TeamYouTube,
Je vous interpelle une dernière fois concernant la suppression de ma chaîne de 190 000 abonnés pour un motif erroné. Il s'agissait d'un simple gameplay de jeu vidéo, et non d'un contenu destiné à la gratification sexuelle.
Je vous demande un dernier… pic.twitter.com/W8o7roTCg1
— j0nathan (@xj0nathan) October 8, 2026
“Since the rest of the game was just a standard horror title like Resident Evil I figured it didn’t really require an age restriction, and that if anything, YouTube would just apply one later on like they always do,” he said.
The YouTuber’s channel had 190,000 subscribers built over over 10 years of content. “I’m addressing you one last time regarding the deletion of my channel with 190,000 subscribers due to an erroneous reason,” J0nathan wrote on X. “It was simply a video game gameplay, and not content intended for sexual gratification. I am requesting one final serious review of my case before I pursue my appeals under the DSA framework and initiate legal proceedings with my lawyer. Above all, I wish for an amicable resolution.”
Make sure you properly label all streams and videos with appropriate age restrictions, sexual theme labels and other necessary platform tools. You will need to adhere to each platform's community guidelines.
— Saber Interactive (@SaberGames) October 7, 2026
So far, it doesn’t sound like he’s heard back from YouTube or the game’s publisher, Saber Interactive. The company urged content creators to adhere to all platform policies when sharing gameplay from Hellraiser, but didn’t offer more concrete advice.
J0nathan told IGN he’s seen other channels share footage from the exact same parts of the game without being penalized, making it unclear why his video got flagged but not others. It could have been an AI review process or some other difference in how the content was posted. Or maybe YouTube will end up eventually banning those other channels as well.
