Grand Theft Auto III is Reclassified in Australia at R18+

The popular urban adventure game Grand Theft Auto III might be making a comeback. A new listing has appeared on the Australian Classification Board for the game.

On Thursday, September 26, 2019, a new listing appeared on the ACB website (discovered by @Nibellion), citing Grand Theft Auto III, published by Rockstar Games.This particular listing has the game rated as R18+. This is different from the previous version of the game.

When the game originally released, it was rated MA15+ in Australia. Not long after, the rating was revoked after it was discovered that you could engage in sexual violence with prostitutes. This prompted Rockstar to censor the game, regaining its MA15+ rating. Eventually, an uncensored version was released on PC for the same rating.

If we had to guess, this is a new rating for that version of the game.

This hasn't stopped speculation from spreading, however. Many folks believe that the "multi-console" label implies that the game will be re-releasing on modern consoles. There's been a proven interest in classic games on the Nintendo Switch console. We've seen games ranging from Dark Souls to the original Doom make their way onto the console.

It's entirely possible that this is simply a renewable of classification and that Rockstar isn't actually planning on re-releasing the game on new consoles. The only way we'll know for sure is with time.