When Paradox Interactive’s medieval strategy game launched on September 2nd, it didn’t come out in Australia because the Classification Board outright refused it a rating, effectively banning it. While no one’s really sure what went wrong, fortunately it all seems to be resolved now. Kotaku Australia reported on the classification confusion earlier last week. Then on Friday, Paradox said the Classification Board has given CK3 an MA15+ rating (thanks, Kotaku Australia). The game is already available to buy in Australia on the Paradox store and Microsoft store, and you can download now on Game Pass too. As for Steam, Paradox say the game will be arriving “a few hours” after their last update to that post (which was around 12am AEST), so it shouldn’t be long until you’re able to grab it. Actually, they also say it’s going live on Steam “in the middle of the night” for Australia, so by the time you’re awake to read this it may well be over on Steam already.
This is far from the first upset with Australia’s ratings board. They only launched an adults-only 18+ classification for video games in 2013, before which many had to be censored or were banned. Even with an 18+ rating, the rules have caused trouble for games which got by just fine in much of the world, including Life Is Strange 2 getting temporarily removed from sale and We Happy Few initially being refused classification. Nate’s Crusader Kings 3 review says that the medieval strategy game “makes a fine execution of a daunting brief. I think I’ll need another year of playing it to work out exactly how good it is, but that’s another way of saying I want to play it for a year, so it must be pretty good.” Seems there are plenty of wacky things going on in this game, too. Nate has also already made an Estonian giant farm in Crusader Kings 3, and some players have even made a mod that lets you play it as a bloodsucker from Vampire: The Masquerade.
