Bethesda’s next blockbuster RPG and one of Xbox’s tentpole console exclusives for 2023, Starfield, has been slapped with the almighty R18+ rating in Australia.
The rating, which means that sales of the game are restricted to persons aged 18 or older, comes mostly as a result of “high impact” drug use, as depicted in the below chart.
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Everything else, from “strong impact” violence to “moderate impact” themes and language, and “none” sex, looks as though it would’ve had the open-world sci-fi behemoth pegged at an MA15+ rating at worst, so whatever drugs are in there must be pretty good:
Famously, Bethesda’s own Fallout 3 was initially refused classification in Australia when it was gearing up to launch in 2008, due to one of the in-game items being labelled after the real-world prescription drug, morphine. Because Australia didn’t have an R18+ rating available at the time, Bethesda wound up renaming the item to Med-X across the board in every region, dropping Fallout 3’s local rating down to an MA15+ and making it sellable here.
Bethesda announced just a week ago that Starfield will be delayed from its H1 2023 release window to a solid release date of September 6th, 2023.
It’s also been confirmed that we’ll get an extended look at the game in the Xbox + Bethesda Games Showcase which is taking place on Monday, June 12th.
For all, into the starfield ? pic.twitter.com/i9Ppie7dV0
— Starfield (@StarfieldGame) March 8, 2023
In a two minute video that was posted on social media, Todd Howard said that “We are so excited to finally tell you when Starfield is coming out this year. We have poured ourselves into this game and even I’m surprised how much we can pour. It is large”.
It’s said that the delay is to ensure that the game runs as well as possible on Xbox consoles, with Microsoft no doubt wanting the game to be a visual showpiece for Xbox Series X.
