DayZ has been having a bit of trouble in Australia recently. When the survival game's Australian distributor applied for a rating from the classification board ahead of the physical release, it was rejected. The rejection, effectively a ban, extended to the digital version, which was removed from sale.
Last week, Bohemia Interactive told me that the rejection was down to the depiction of drug use and that it was looking to find a way to keep the game available in Australia. For the time being, it looks like that solution is a global change.
So that Australian players aren't excluded, DayZ will be changed across the board, Bohemia Interactive told Kotaku Australia.
"At the moment, we are editing the global version of DayZ so it will fit into the Board’s requirements. The key objective is to keep the gameplay as authentic as it was, so players are not affected by this change."
The specifics of the changes haven't been detailed, and it's especially strange because DayZ doesn't depict recreational drug use. It does, however, contain morphine, which caused similar problems for Bethesda, prompting them to change its name to Med-X in Fallout. There are files for cannabis, too, though it doesn't appear in the live game.
If Fallout is anything to go by, simply changing the name should appease the board. It's all very arbitrary and unhelpful, of course, and if there was a real issue, a name change wouldn't solve anything, but at least it won't be too disruptive for players.
