There’s a strange situation going on with Silent Hill f in Australia.
As shared by Genki JPN on Twitter, the Australian Classification Board published on their website that the game has been refused classification. To be clear, the mark RC or refused classification is not a rating. They have ratings for adult content, R18 + (no sexual content) and X18+ (has sexual content), respectively.
Games and other media that have been refused classification are not censored per se. Australia’s board does not mandate game companies to make cuts or changes. However, if a game doesn’t get rated, it isn’t allowed to be sold or imported into the country. In this roundabout way, the companies themselves make changes to reapply for a rating.
Historically, Australia has been effective at forcing game companies to make changes to their games. Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Grand Theft Auto Vice City were all refused classification, and then received ratings after Rockstar removed content, such as drug use, and then reapplied.
In this case, however, there’s an interesting twist. As Genki revealed in a follow-up tweet:
“UPDATE: The Silent Hill f ratings page details have been removed and the game is still up for pre-order at select Australian retailers. It seems the rating has not yet been finalized.”
We can confirm at the time that we are writing this, that Australia’s Classification Board has not uploaded a new rating for Silent Hill f. It’s easy to make a guess on what has happened here. Just like those multiple Grand Theft Auto titles, Konami and NeoBards have chosen to reapply for a rating.
And to get a more favorable rating for the game, Konami is likely to be making changes for Silent Hill f that will only apply in Australia. But we already know that the ESRB gave this title an M rating, with some extremely graphic descriptions of what will clearly be some heart wrenching and disgusting scenes in the game.
We can already tell this early on that Australia may receive a considerably different game than gamers who buy Silent Hill f in countries and regions that did not see such edits. There may even be some aesthetic merits to these alternative versions of these games. But that may depend on how much of the visions of the creators has changed, and also if those changes can stand up on their own merits. But for now, it seems none of this has been decided yet.
