RimWorld's Ban In Australia Is Being Reviewed By Classification Board

thegamer.com:

RimWorld was refused classification by Australia’s Classification Board at the end of February after being available on Steam for almost a decade. The late classification appeared to be related to an impending console port that hasn’t been announced yet, which made the sudden ban both a surprise and a disappointment for fans living in Australia.

Now it seems like the Australian Classification Board is going to give RimWorld a second look. RimWorld designer Tynan Sylvester (via PC Gamer) tweeted last week that the Classification Board was going to review its previous decision on April 20.

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"Good news! The Australian Classification Board is going to review their ruling which banned RimWorld from sale in Australia,” wrote Sylvester. “We've got some legal professionals and expert witnesses helping out, so I'm optimistic. Thanks everyone for your support on this."

The Classification Board initially refused RimWorld a classification on February 28 due to its portrayal of sex, drugs, violence, and even cannibalism. However, anyone who’s ever actually played RimWorld knows that the game’s basic graphics don’t really do much to show these dark acts visually, and it’s mostly up to the player to imagine them through written descriptions.

Refusing classification effectively banned RimWorld in Australia, and although current owners of the game on Steam were allowed to keep playing, RimWorld was region locked so that no new Australian users could buy the game.

The Australian Classification Board has overturned previous decisions before, as was the case with Disco Elysium's ban a year ago, so there's hope that the same can happen for RimWorld.

And before we forget, this whole thing all