After it was denied a rating by Australia’s Classification Board—and by extension, banned by the country entirely—earlier this month, Outlast 2 has received an R18+ rating and will indeed launch in Australia as planned.
According to the Australian Government’s Classification Board website, the horror sequel was given its new rating on March 21, and is deemed to have “high impact horror themes, violence, blood, gore and sex.” The five-point scale applied to each aspect of the rating (i.e. violence, drug use, sex, etc.) ranges from “very mild impact” to “high impact,” and as you can see below, the title’s content was still found to be quite severe:
The board told IGN “it is satisfied that that the original version of the game that was refused classification has been modified to allow the game to be classified R18+,” implying that the game’s previously objectionable sexually violent content has been edited. Developer Red Barrels then issued a statement to Press Start, saying, “Outlast 2 has been rated R18+ by the Classification Branch in Australia and will be released 26th April 2017. There will be only one version of Outlast 2 available worldwide.”
Together, these statements would point to the game having been edited for its entire global market. As of this writing, Outlast 2 has yet to receive a rating from the ESRB or PEGI, though ratings of M and 18, respectively, seem most likely for the title.
If you never played the original Outlast, you can check out our 2013 review here. Outlast 2 will release (in North America) for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Mac on April 25.