Australia bans Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number due to 'implied rape' scene
Australia's classification board has effectively banned Dennaton Games and Devolver Digital's Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number due to a scene depicting implied sexual violence against a woman.
Their refusal to classify the game means it cannot be sold legally or distributed locally.
Kotaku Australia received a copy of the game's classification report which describes the sequence in question. The report reads:
In the sequence of game play footage titled Midnight Animal, the protagonist character bursts into what appears to be a movie set and explicitly kills 4 people, who collapse to the floor in a pool of copious blood, often accompanied by blood splatter. After stomping on the head of a fifth male character, he strikes a female character wearing red underwear. She is knocked to the floor and is viewed lying face down in a pool of copious blood.
The male character is viewed with his pants halfway down, partially exposing his buttocks. He is viewed pinning the female down by the arms and lying on top of her thrusting, implicitly raping her (either rear entry or anally) while her legs are viewed kicking as she struggles beneath him. This visual depiction of implied sexual violence is emphasised by it being mid-screen, with a red backdrop pulsating and the remainder of the screen being surrounded by black.
The Australian governments general ruling on what content can be refused, describes games that "depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults."
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number will be released everywhere but Australia (and let's face it, probably Germany) later this year.
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