Five years after its initial release, the Australian Classification Board has awarded the uncensored version of first-person zombie shooter game Left 4 Dead 2 an R18+ rating, making the unedited, uncensored game legal in Australia for the first time.
Dated August 29, the classification of the Valve game states that it is the original version and that it contains “High impact violence, blood and gore.”
“We are delighted that the full version of Left 4 Dead 2 will be available to fans age 18+ in Australia,” Doug Lombardi of Valve told Kotaku Australia. “We are making plans to deliver that version to those who have already purchased the game. We will announce more details on that soon.”
When it was originally released in 2009, Australia did not have an R18+ classification rating and since the board refused to classify the original version, Left 4 Dead 2 was barred from distribution in Australia. As reported by IGN, Valve was forced to submit a heavily censored version of the game in Australia that the board gave an MA 15+ rating, stating “the element of violence in the game has been sufficiently modified.”
The Australian Federal Parliament passed legislation to introduce an R18+ category for video game classification in February 2012 and those laws came into effect January 2013.
Recently, an amendment to the Australian Games Classification Act was passed in the Senate aiming to streamline the classification process with the aid of Classification Tools rather than relying solely on the Classification Board. It is unknown when those changes will come into effect.
