Doki Doki Literature Club has been pulled from the Google Play Store, just a few months after its release on the mobile storefront back in December 2025. In a statement from Serenity Forge, the studio cites that Google chose to remove the game from the Google Play Store as its content violates the storefront’s terms of service in “its depiction of sensitive themes.”
“DDLC is available on many different major platforms, including iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and more,” Serenity Forge writes. “We’re continuing to do everything we can to find a path forward for getting DDLC reinstated on the Google Play Store. Meanwhile, we’re also looking into potential options for alternate methods of distribution on Android devices.”
At this point, it’s no secret that Doki Doki Literature Club is a disturbing experience that touches on self-harm and emotional abuse, and uses graphic imagery to do so, but there’s a big “This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed” warning on store pages for the game. Audiences are suitably warned that this is a horror game, despite marketing material and the game’s first hour disguising the experience as a romantic-comedy visual novel.
And even if Doki Doki Literature Club is somehow in violation of the Google Play Store’s policies (which would be weird when it’s a-okay everywhere else), why is that the case today and not for the last four months? This move on Google Play’s part feels more like censorship than anything else, likely as part of the disgusting crackdown by major payment processor companies to get rid of NSFW content.
Up to this point, we’ve seen this mostly occur in response to sexual content being deplatformed–in 2018, Vice noted Patreon suspended adult content creators because of its payment partners; and in 2024, TechCrunch wrote about how Gumroad was no longer allowing NSFW artwork on its platform. And while OnlyFans did walk back its effort, as noted by TechCrunch, it was considering banning adult content after it received pressure from card payment companies.
The porn space has been warning us for years that this could all be early steps in a longer campaign to censor more types of NSFW content, which would include violence and horror.
“They’re going after horror, we said this would happen,” independent artist (and previously Castlevania and Castlevania: Nocturne character artist) Suzanne Sharp posted on Bluesky in response to Serenity Forge’s statement. “It is never just about porn. Even if you don’t care about porn, it’s going to spread until it engulfs everything you love.”
As of April 9, Doki Doki Literature Club is still unavailable on the Google Play Store, and Google Play has not issued a statement as to whether it will reinstate the game on the platform.
