Earlier this month, the Australian Classification Board decided to ban Bohemia Interactive’s DayZ due to references to marijuana in the game. This prompted the studio to make changes to the game and resubmit it for classification. Thanks to this, the board has now officially reversed the DayZ Australia ban.
The Australian Classification Board updated their website this morning revealing that the DayZ now has an MA15+ rating. The rating should allow the game to once again be sold in all digital platforms. With this, the game should re-appear on Steam, the PlayStation Store, and Xbox Live in the country soon.
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The Classification Board website mentions that the version of DayZ that they reviewed had been modified. Last week, Bohemia confirmed that they were working on changing the game, taking out the references to weed that the Board didn’t approve of. Interestingly enough, Bohemia changed the game worldwide, and not just in Australia. It stated that this was so that everyone playing DayZ all over the world would have the exact same experience.
The Australian Classification Board has gained a reputation for being one of the strictest ratings boards in the world. Indeed, the board only created its R18+ rating in 2012, long after other boards had done so. Even with this rating, the board still gives out the RC or “Refused Classification” rating for games quite frequently.
Recently, aside from DayZ, the Board also refused classification of a Rockstar Games title code named “Bonaire.” With the name not tied to any known Rockstar game, many speculate that it represents an unannounced DLC expansion for Red Dead Redemption 2. Bonaire happens to be the name of a real life island in the Caribbean after all, which calls back to one of the later chapters of Rockstar’s wild west game which also takes place on a Caribbean island.
