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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Jackson Ryan

The new Halloween video game has been banned in Australia – and not because of the violence

A still from Halloween: The Game of a silhouetted hand holding a knife, while a woman stands at a kitchen counter with her back turned to the camera
A still from Halloween: The Game. The ability for players to smoke marijuana to detect an enemy has resulted in the game being banned in Australia. Photograph: Illfonic

Halloween’s Michael Myers is one of film’s most feared boogeymen, responsible for some of the most brutal on-screen deaths in horror cinema. The US video game developer Illfonic looked to reproduce those terrors in its upcoming title Halloween: The Game, with gruesome killings a major focus of the gameplay: for instance, you can stomp another player’s head through a toilet seat, or fry their brain by throwing them through a television screen.

But Australians will not be able to play Halloween, because it has been refused classification by the Australian Classification Board, which means it is banned from sale within the country. And it’s not because of the violence or murders.

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