We Happy Few Refused a Rating by the Australian Authorities

We Happy Few has had a pretty rough little life. It came into the world as a Kickstarter project during the middle of the “survival” fad with a brand-new, exciting premise: rather than wandering through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, you’re trying to survive and escape a very modern, very brutal society that mandates the use of a mind-altering drug called “Joy." A few versions were released with mixed reception, the game was snatched up by Gearbox, and now the game is getting a full triple-A release sometime later this year.

But there’s been a small problem with that scheduled release: the famously-strict Australian Ratings Board has refused to give the game a classification, which means it literally cannot be sold anywhere in Australian shores.

When this happens, it’s because the game might "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."

To say the game deals with drug misuse or addiction is an understatement: that’s the whole premise of the game, the use – and abuse – of joy makes up both the setting and the gameplay, with players having the choice of popping pills to help survive but risking addiction in the process. Which means it can’t exactly be snipped out easily to satisfy them folks down under.

So it seems unlikely that the game will ever find itself sold down under, which might be a pity, but based on the reception when it was first launched that might not actually be a terrible loss… unless, of course, it was already pre-ordered or backed by Australians. But then I mean I guess you can just import a copy.