Australians can now legally purchase RimWorld once again, with the Australian Classification Board overturning its initial "Refused Classification" rating following an application review.
The space colony sim had been happily sitting on Australian Steam since its Early Access launch in 2013, but upcoming console ports appeared to be the reason for its appearance on the Classification Board website. It was refused classification in February, with the reason being the game's handling of "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."
Earlier this month it was revealed the board would review the application, which has helped to overturn bans for games like Disco Elysium in the past. RimWorld creator Tynan Sylvester had said he was "optimistic" for a positive outcome, and it appears he had every right to be.
Good news! RimWorld is now rated and legal to buy again in Australia.We'll have it back up on Steam soon.Thanks to everyone who lent their support.https://t.co/KBRR9sySp4April 20, 2022
RimWorld has now been classified as R 18+ in Australia, the highest rating that can be given. The board referred to the use of drugs in the game as having "a high impact," but determined that "the game mechanics ultimately provided disincentives related to drug-taking behaviour, to the point where regular drug use leads to negative consequences such as overdose, addiction and withdrawal." It also points out how the drug use is "depicted at a distance through a top-down perspective, in a highly stylised, simplified form."
A news post on the game's Steam page read: "We assembled a lot of useful evidence and had a great legal team to help us. Our community was also amazing and helped us by providing examples of games on Steam that had similar cases to us, like Disco Elysium and Fallout. The review concluded with a happy ending."
