The ESRB seems to have something against publisher Deep Silver. First, it forced the company to censor its cover art for Dead Island, which depicted a hanging corpse silhouette. Luckily, the walking zombie the corpse was replaced by, while certainly not as dark or awesome as the original image, was still good.
Now, though, the ESRB has targeted another title from Deep Silver. This time, it's the upcoming action RPG Risen 2: Dark Waters. It seems the cover art has a bit more red than the ESRB would hope for, so all of that nice coloring has been removed. Like Dead Island, what we now have is box art that still looks cool, but not as cool as it should have.
It should be pointed out that the change only affects North America. That means all those other regions are still getting the original cover with the red stuff behind the skull. I'm surprised the ESRB didn't have the skull removed!
The ESRB's argument is that the color red is too linked to blood. I'll give them that, but I still disagree completely with this change. Not because I really wanted red in the box art of Risen 2, but because it's a stupid reason to censor a game's cover.