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Post by Eorl @ 01:10pm 15/01/15 | 5 Comments
Please note: This article has been updated to reflect new information.

PlayerAttack is reporting (via VG247) that the Australian Classification Board has refused classification for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, the ultra-violent top-down action sequel to last year's hit title, meaning it can not be sold or distributed locally in Australia.

Dennaton Games' soon-to-be-released title was refused classification due to an apparent scene in the game that implied sexual rape, which can cause the game to instantly be banned in accordance with classification laws.

An excerpt from the report (via Kotaku AU) can be found here, though as a general warning it is graphical in nature:
In the sequence of game play footage titled Midnight Animal, the protagonist character bursts into what appears to be a movie set and explicitly kills 4 people, who collapse to the floor in a pool of copious blood, often accompanied by blood splatter. After stomping on the head of a fifth male character, he strikes a female character wearing red underwear. She is knocked to the floor and is viewed lying face down in a pool of copious blood. The male character is viewed with his pants halfway down, partially exposing his buttocks. He is viewed pinning the female down by the arms and lying on top of her thrusting, implicitly raping her (either rear entry or anally) while her legs are viewed kicking as she struggles beneath him. This visual depiction of implied sexual violence is emphasised by it being mid-screen, with a red backdrop pulsating and the remainder of the screen being surrounded by black.
According to the classification guidelines, games that “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;” will be Refused Classification.”

According to recent previews of the game to media, the scene in question was raised to the studio, with Dennaton noting that they were thinking of revising said scene. A detailed explanation from Dennaton's Dennis Wedin can be found here. The classification report also notes that this isn't an exhaustive list of the content that caused Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number to be refused classification in Australia.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is still expected to be launched sometime in Q1 of this year for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita for everyone else around the world.



dennaton gameshotline miami 2australian classification boardr18 rating





Latest Comments
groganus
Posted 01:48pm 15/1/15
Dongs.

I was looking forward to dusting off the vita to play number 2, super excited in fact.
Hogfather
Posted 04:08pm 15/1/15
Based on the description it kinda seems like a legit RC though?
Enska
Posted 05:53pm 15/1/15
I thought Dennaton had already revised said scene after the giant uproar from the internets morality police way back when.
There's probably better examples of RC'd s*** to whinge about than this, but they should seriously just change it from R18+ to MA16+ or something equally pointless.
It's pretty evident that the new classification laws are just bulls***\
Monkeez
Posted 06:05pm 15/1/15
Based on the description it kinda seems like a legit RC though?

I find it odd though that scenes like this are allowed to be shown in movies but not in games.
Nukleuz
Posted 06:56pm 15/1/15
They weren't always shown in movies. It took a very long time for the restrictions on explicit language, violence, sex scenes etc to be relaxed.

As I see it, gamers never really got a true R18+. MA15+ was shifted up to give us that R18+ category but beyond that nothing really changed. The next 10-15 years will see the real shift towards a true R18+.

In the meantime, there's still plenty of methods for getting around an RC classification. To put it simply, refusing classification for a game is not going to stop anyone from playing it if they really want to.
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