Twinkle Star Knights replaces artwork with black silhouettes on iOS
The censorship case surrounding Twinkle Star Knights has once again drawn attention from players after DMM Games decided to replace several illustrations with black silhouettes in the iOS version. This temporary solution was necessary for the game to return to the App Store after months of conflict with Apple’s review rules.
Why did Twinkle Star Knights censor its artwork on iOS?
The controversy involving Twinkle Star Knights began in August 2025, when a game update failed to pass App Store review. The game had been available on the platform since 2023 without major issues, but suddenly Apple seems to have realized it had approved the title and demanded that the developer censor absolutely all of the game’s skins, including those available at launch.
Apple argued that nearly all visual materials since release could contain elements “capable of offending some users.” This forced the company to apologize to the iOS audience and prepare a cloud version to maintain basic access to the game, although without new events or features.
New attempt also fails, increasing the game’s censorship
In September 2025, DMM Games revealed that the situation had worsened. The company, together with Studio Kumasan, developed a new build with several changes to the female characters, believing they were the main point of conflict. Even so, the update was rejected again by Apple, which maintained that the game still did not comply with platform guidelines.
This series of rejections left iOS players without new content for more than two months, leading the publisher to seek an emergency solution.
How the temporary silhouette solution works
To allow the title to return to the App Store, DMM Games decided to apply a curious strategy: replacing all artwork still under review with black silhouettes. Thus, only illustrations already approved by the operations team appear normally in the game. All remaining visual content remains hidden until it goes through a final review and receives the green light to be displayed.
This method has been compared by players to a giant guessing game, similar to the famous “Who’s That Pokémon?”, since many characters appear only as shadows.
According to EXNOA, a subsidiary of DMM, the complete review of all visual materials requires a long and detailed process, meaning the silhouette phase may last for quite some time. A curious detail is that Twinkle Star Knights was actually approved on the App Store around October 8, only to be rejected again about two weeks later, on October 21, according to information published by Game*Spark.
Even so, DMM Games stated that it will continue contacting Apple’s review team to try to resolve the situation quickly and deliver the content players are waiting for.