Only hours after its official release in North America, hackers familiar with Sony’s PSP have discovered that the scenes of gore removed from Manhunt 2 to appease US censors are still present in the code – and an unedited version of the game has already made its way onto file sharing websites, Gamesindustry reports.

The scenario is similar to that encountered previously by Rockstar in the ‘Hot Coffee’ scandal, when it was discovered that sex scenes that were omitted from the final game were still present on the disc, and accessible if the right methods were used.

It is unknown whether the offending code is also present on the PS2 and Wii versions of the title.

Considering the controversy that the title has already attracted, and the fact that it remains banned in the UK for the time being, the presence of an unedited version on the internet could prove a PR quandary for the publisher.