Saints Row 4 Censored For Australia... May Be Uncensored By Proxy

Saints Row IV To Probe DLC Loophole - Kotaku Australia

Deep Silver Games have happily announced that Saints Row IV has finally earned the tick of approval for release in Australia.  True they had to remove a couple of missions but hey, why bother about heavy handed censorship when we have a broken R18+ rating for games.

If you head to your local games retailer then you can go with the peace of mind that the Australian Classification Board has protected your fragile adult mind from fictional alien drugs that grant superpowers since that is just one step away from believing real life illicit drugs will reward you in some undefined way.  You also won't have to worry about being exposed to a ridiculously cartoonish "Rectifier Probe" which, if it's anything like the giant purple dildo bat in Saints Row 3, you can completely ignore and never actually use.  Aren't you so glad that as an adult you have such reasonable government regulation to protect you from such evil?

If you agree then you'd better not get the Season Pass or buy any DLC because Deep Silver has not so subtly hinted that the above content may well feature heavily in expansions and bonuses available at launch as well as further down the track.  This simple fact shows just how broken our system is.  I was deeply involved with the decade long fight to get us an R18+ rating and must admit that I hope Deep Silver get away with the DLC workaround.  Well it worked for GTA IV which had a game update that restored all content originally removed for Australian release.

Even with the restoration of content post release I urge anyone who wants to get their hands on SR4 to investigate alternative options for purchasing it.  If the censored version sells well in Australia then it will send a message that we are prepared to accept censorship on entertainment specifically intended for adults.