A Console Version Of RimWorld Appears To Have Been Refused Classification In Australia
Did the Australian Classification Board just reveal an unannounced console version of RimWorld?
According to the Classification Board’s website, a multiplatform version of the game has been refused classification in Australia. The cited reasons:
Games 1(a): The computer game is classified RC in accordance with the National Classification Code, Computer Games Table, 1. (a) as computer 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 to the extent that they should not be classified.”
That’s quite a list. And a surprising response from the Classification Board, given that RimWorld has been available for PC in Australia since 2018. A lot has indeed changed about RimWorld since its original launch. It now simulates a wide variety of scenarios and systems. Its Steam page struggles to stuff all of the systems players can engage with into its blurb: “Generates (sic) stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.”
What is RimWorld?
In RimWorld, players are stranded on a proc-gen world at the edge of space. Your character receives a set of randomised traits they can use to contribute to the colony. As your colony expands and matures, more colonists will arrive to join you. Colonists also have randomised traits, and these can be positive or negative. The last thing you need is a colonist with the Psychopath trait moving in and going hog wild in town.
The action is controlled by an AI storyteller, which introduces randomised scenarios or events. There are three storytellers you can choose from. These are Cassandra Classic, Phoebe Chillax, and Randy Random. You can set your Storyteller to one of six difficulty levels. This means that, even if you want the chaos of a Randy playthrough but aren’t completely insane, you can dial it back a touch.
The game ends when you either depart the planet via spacecraft or when your entire colony is dead, whichever occurs first.
One particular update to RimWorld famously added drugs, and we all know how the Classification Board feels about those.
RimWorld‘s first DLC, Royalty, launched in 2020 and allows your character to invite the High Stellarch, a factional leader within the Rim, to their colony and leave it in their care. The Ideology DLC launched in 2021 and added a suite of new belief systems, turning your colony into a bunch of religious zealots.
What now?
Developer Ludeon Studios has not, at the time of writing, announced any console version of RimWorld. The Classification Board lists Double Eleven Ltd as a co-developer/publisher. Double Eleven is a British studio that specialises in console ports of PC games. It was Mojang’s development partner on Minecraft Dungeons and is the studio behind Rust: Console Edition.
If Ludeon and Double Eleven want to launch a console version of RimWorld in Australia, it seems they have some revisions to make. Kotaku Australia has reached out to Ludeon, Double Eleven, and the Classification Board for comment. We’ll let you know how it evolves.
The post A Console Version Of RimWorld Appears To Have Been Refused Classification In Australia appeared first on Kotaku Australia.
