‘Outlast 2’ Banned In Australia After Being Refused Classification

Red Barrels’ upcoming survival horror game, “Outlast 2,” is now banned in Australia. The game has reportedly been deemed unsuitable for sale in the country by the Australian Classification Board.

“Outlast 2,” which is scheduled to be released on April 25, was refused to be given a classification, rendering it banned from being sold in Down Under. Developer Red Barrels will now have to re-submit the game with changes or censors in order to meet the required standards for it to be released there.

“‘Outlast 2’ [does] 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,” the Classification Board said, as per Digital Spy.

There’s one particular part of the game wherein there are multiple scenes with implied sexual violence. A scene in this scenario includes a female creature thrusting against the main character, Blake, while the latter’s wife is in chains. Kotaku Australia goes into further details about this on its original report.

Apparently, the board’s decision was based on that scenario within the game, which is also implied to be a hallucination. The Classification Board noted that if the implied sexual violence described above was absent from the game, “Outlast 2” would have been eligible for an R18+ rating.

What’s most interesting about this news is that Australian censors gave the “Outlast 2” demo an R18+ rating back in September. To be fair, that demo didn’t show the full contents of the game, which may be the reason why it was able slip through and get the R18+ rating at the time.

Although Red Barrels can re-submit an amended version of “Outlast 2,” it can refuse to do so and make the ban in Australia official. “Outlast 2” is slated for release on the PS4, Xbox One and PC next month.