Officials have cleared a modified version of Activision’s Soldier of Fortune: Payback for sale in Australia, reversing an earlier ban on the title.
The revised version of the game has been rated MA 15+, which indicates strong violence, coarse language and sexual references. According to Australian gaming site MyGEN, the edited version of the game has been modified to remove dismemberment of enemies, and has also scaled down the blood effects and rag doll physics.
The original version of the notoriously violent shooter was banned by Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification, which refused to issue it a rating due to the game’s “high impact violence.” A spokeswoman for the OFLC said the game’s content “seems to exceed the MA classification.” Australia does not currently have a videogame rating that corresponds with M or 18+ ratings found in North America and Europe.
The Australian version of Soldier of Fortune: Payback is scheduled for release in early 2008 on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
