Disco Elysium The Final Cut, no rating in Australia: rating rejected

Disco Elysium The Final Cut, no rating in Australia: rating rejected

Disco Elysium The Final Cut, no rating in Australia

Directly from Oceania some headaches for the development team of ZA / UM come, with the software house in the process of publishing the final and expanded version of its first work.

The Australian classification body has in fact refused to give a rating to Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, an expanded and enriched re-edition of the acclaimed RPG. Widely known in the gaming industry for its rigidity and severity, the Australian Classification Board denied the production the possibility of entering the domestic market. At the roots of the choice, reasons that had already led to similar decisions for other video games.

In explaining the provision, the government body in fact recalls how the Australian National Classification Code provides for the refusal to assign a rating in cases where a video game includes references to or portrays situations related to "sex, drug abuse or drug addiction, crime, violence, or hideous or repugnant acts that are an offense to standards of morality, decency and decorum as generally accepted by the adult population ". The verdict of the Rating Board is not always final: often, making some targeted changes to the Australian edition has proved sufficient to convince the body to attribute an 18+ to its production.



Pending updates, we remind you that the launch date of Disco Elysium: The Final Cut has been announced for Google Stadia, PC and Sony consoles. The game is also expected on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch later this year. As for the future, ZA / UM has not ruled out other games set in the world of Disco Elysium.





Disco Elysium: The Final Cut has been refused classification in Australia

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut has been refused classification in Australia ahead of its planned release at the end of March—blocking the sale of the game's incoming console editions, and raising questions about the future of the Steam release.


The Australian Government's Classification Board this week gave Disco Elysium: The Final Cut a rating (or lack thereof) of RC, or Refused Classification. The filing cites depictions of drug use, addiction, crime, cruelty, violence and otherwise for the board's reasoning. 


To give it credit, Disco Elysium's story does greatly concern drug use and addiction. The player character's alcoholism is an immediately important part of the game's story. But then, these aren't elements exclusive to The Final Cut, and Disco Elysium has been available on Steam since October 2019.


Since The Final Cut arrives on PC as an update rather than a full standalone release, it's hard to tell whether the decision will affect its availability through Steam. PC Gamer has reached out to Studio ZA/UM for comment. 


The rating affects The Final Cut rather than Disco Elysium itself because, as an exclusive Steam release, the original version didn't need to go through the classification board. As it's also available on consoles, The Final Cut does. That said, Steam doesn't grant immunity from the the board's decisions. Hotline Miami 2 is still unavailable in the country, for example. And while the decision was eventually overturned, The Medium was initially refused classification—though that turned out to be over issues with the game's submission process, which may yet be the case for The Final Cut.


It'd be a shame to see Disco Elysium: The Final Cut denied entry into Aus when it launches on March 30th. Arriving as an update for PC owners, the new edition adds full voice acting and, as Fraser found out, isn't afraid to make its politically-charged story even more ideological.