Earlier this week, IllFonic had announced that Halloween: The Game was denied a rating by the Australian Classification Board, effectively preventing it from being released in Australia. However, many were quick to point out that IllFonic’s statement about the rating denial included the game being blocked from being sold in Australia and New Zealand, which as many pointed out, are two separate countries with different sets of laws.
Now, IllFonic has released a statement regarding New Zealand, stating that Halloween: The Game will be available digitally for New Zealand, but not physically.
“When we partnered with physical distributors (as we do not handle) to sell packaged goods in Australia and New Zealand, we learned that the ACB rating (used for physical) took precedence over the [International Age Rating Coalition] rating (used for digital). When ACB refused us a rating, it meant the removal of both physical and digital versions in those territories.”
In fact, when IllFonic had announced the rating refusal, IGN decided to do some detective work on the matter, revealing that IllFonic had used the automated, free-to-use online rating tool maintained by the IARC to secure an R18+ rating for the game’s pre-order content, which would be published automatically on Australia’s National Classification Database.
However, the IARC tool can only be used to classify games that are exclusively digitally distributed in Australia. If the game was going to be released physically in Australia, it would need to be submitted to the Classification Board for human rating, not the IARC tool.
Nevertheless, as many readers have pointed out, those Aussies and Kiwis looking to get a physical copy of the game can simply go the import route.
Halloween: The Game will launch digitally on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and launch physically on October 6.