Tweaked: Saints Row 4 gets MA15+ rating in Australia, ditches space drugs

Is this actually happening or is the space dope kicking in?

Reasonable news for those of you who were wanting to pick up Saints Row 4 in Australia. After being denied an age rating classification twice, the game has now been granted an MA15+ rating and will be released in Australia on 23 August.

The only bad news is that in order to satisfy the Australian Classification Board, the offending mission had to be removed from the Australian version of the game. You may recall this mission featured horrific acts of realistic sexual violence against children and small anim … wait, no, it involved some wacky alien space drugs that gave the player-character superpowers. Apparently this matter was TOO HOT for the country’s recently adopted R18+ rating, so if any Australians wish to give themselves serious mental scarring they’ll just have to watch the 20 minute mission on youtube instead.

Joystiq received a special message from publishers Deep Silver confirming the changes and the age rating outcome, which reads as follows:

To achieve this [MA15+] rating one loyalty mission featuring the character Shaundi has been removed. This mission has been widely reported on and contains the use of alien narcotics to obtain certain superpowers. This mission represents approximately 20 minutes of gameplay out of the hours available to purchasers. The removal of this mission has no negative impact on the story or the superpowers and will not detract from the enjoyment players will get from their Saints Row IV experience.

The “rectifier” weapon (which had previously caused age classification issues for the game in Australia due to its anal probing nature) is said to now be part of a DLC package “as originally intended.”