We Happy Few No Longer Banned in Australia

We Happy Few has now received a rating in Australia and can be sold in the country after the Australian Classification Review Board reversed its initial decision.

The survival game from developer Compulsion Games puts players in a dystopian world where everyone’s happy all the time, or at least they’d have you believe that. To blend in, you have to look the part, and that means using a fictional drug called “Joy” to avoid unwanted attention. That’s precisely the reason why the Classification Board refused to rate the game in Australia while citing the reasoning that games that incentivize drug use wouldn’t be rated.

Following the Classification Board’s announcement that the game wouldn’t be rated in the country, the decision was appealed by publisher Gearbox Publishing. The board responded to the appeal on June 26 to say that the decision would be revisited again on July 3. Now that that date’s here, the Classification Board published a new media release to say that an R 18+ rating would be applied to the game.

“A three-member panel of the Classification Review Board has unanimously determined that the computer game We Happy Few is classified R 18+ (Restricted) with the consumer advice ‘Fantasy violence and interactive drug use.’”

“The National Classification Code and Classification Guidelines requires the treatment of drug use to not exceed high at the R 18+ level. In the Classification Review Board’s opinion We Happy Few warrants an R 18+ classification because the interactive drug use is high in impact. The overall impact of the classifiable elements in the computer game was no greater than high.”

This means that the game essentially has a “Mature” rating, the same that it got in the States. It’ll be restricted to those 18 and up, but nobody will have to resort to any shady methods of acquiring the game now.

Compulsion Games announced the good news as well to inform everyone looking forward to playing the game in the country that it’d been essentially unbanned in Australia.

“We are extremely pleased with the decision of the board and excited that our Australian fans and new players will be able to experience We Happy Few without modification,” Compulsion Games said. “We want to thank everybody who got involved in the discussion, contacted the board and sent us countless messages of support. Your involvement made a huge difference.”

We Happy Few is scheduled to launch on August 10.