Way back in July 2020 The Medium, a psychological horror game boasting a mind bending dual reality gameplay system was submitted to the Australian Classification Board. the listing shown here gives an RC rating which means unfortunately for us in the land of sunburnt country that there is no way to purchase or play the game inside our borders unless we decide to import (if a physical release is even a thing).
Given that this is a title which has been heavily promoted by Xbox in the launch of their new system it comes as a bit of a blow but one that may not be all troublesome to rectify. Usually, games are refused classification for 1 of a few reasons. The first big reason is that drugs and/or sex have been used in the game to promote a tangible benefit or for a reward in a quest. The most notable of these is when fallout 3 had to change the name of morphine to med-x as a consumable because it gave a limited stat buff in-game.
The second is actually easier to fix through appeal, in Australia not all games are sent directly through to the board for review and instead most overseas developers and publishers will fill out a form called the IARC classification form, a tool used by developers to help the board quickly classify games sold in Australia, unfortunately if you answer the questionnaire incorrectly it will be flagged by the system and usually ends in a refused classification.
In a response to Kotaku AU the developers at Bloober team are quoted as saying that they will work on this issue “tomorrow and Thursday”. Given that this is the extent of their response, we can hazard a guess that maybe they were erroneous in filling out the questionnaire and will be fixing this by appealing directly to the board. They would want to be fast though, as Australian bureaucracy is at the best of times slow to act.
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