PlayStation has removed a banned PS5 game — also available on PS4 — after it was accidentally permitted to release on the PlayStation Store. More than this, it has gone ahead and removed the PS5/PS4 game from the library of any PS5/PS4 user who purchased the game, providing refunds in the process. What is odd about the development is that it took months for this to happen. The game in question has been available for months, but Sony is only now getting around to removing any trace of the game from PSN. What took so long, is unclear.
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Thankfully, if you are in the United States or many other regions of the world — where this PS5/PS4 game is available — you don’t have anything to worry about. The game has been not been completely banned from PSN, just banned from PSN in certain parts of the world. One of these parts of the world is Australia. Despite this, it has been available to purchase on Australian PSN for months. Not anymore though.
Any Australian PSN user who recently noticed that Hotline Miami 2 was no longer in their library, it is because it was never supposed to be there in the first place. And that is because it was never rated for release in Australia. This is because it was never submitted for rating in the region given the area’s reputation for restricting, limiting, and banning games that depict sexual content, content with drugs, or over-the-top violent content. Also because the Australian rating board previous restricted the game’s release on Nintendo Switch.
Hotline Miami 2 has all three of the content types above to the max. To this end, one scene, in particular, that depicts sexual assault caused quite the controversy when the game was originally released, and no doubt played a major role in its restriction/limiting/banning in certain parts of the world.
PlayStation has not offered any insight into how the game got on Australian PSN, but it is not the first game to squeak pass the certification team over at Sony. What it has done has begun to alert PS5 and PS4 users that had it in their library that it is now gone, with a refund in its place.
For those unfamiliar with Hotline Miami 2 — or Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number as it is fully titled — is a 2015 game and sequel to the popular 2012 game, Hotline Miami. It was developed by Dennaton Games and published by Devolver Digital.
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