Australian gaming website Press-Start revealed that Outlast 2, the sequel to Outlast by Red Barrels has been refused classification in Australia. The Australian publisher, 18point2 applied for the classification, but it was refused on March 15th.
The reason that was given for Outlast 2 being refused classification is because it breaks the following classification guideline:
“depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified.”
A Refused Classification rating by the Australian Ratings Board means that the game is effectively banned for sale in Australia. Something that has happened in the past, most notably with Mortal Kombat 9 (aka Mortal Kombat).
The original game had issues passing classification too, having to have some content removed in order to see an Australian release. 18point2 still has time to edit content to fit the R18+ classification that Australia has before the April 25th release date.
However this brings up a bigger problem, that being that when the classification guidelines where updated to include a R18+ rating for more mature games that cater to adults, it still don’t actually cater to adults. Australia is still a backwards nanny country with a Government that doesn’t think adults are gamers despite the average age of gamers in Australia being between 25-35 years of age.
Update: Kotaku Australia got a hold of the report complete with examples of why Outlast 2 got Refused Classification. You can read about it here
