Rimworld has been unbanned in Australia and is back on Steam

RimWorld key art
(Image credit: Ludeon Studios)

Australians can now legally purchase RimWorld once again, with the Australian Classification Board overturning its initial "Refused Classification" rating following an application review.

The space colony sim had been happily sitting on Australian Steam since its Early Access launch in 2013, but upcoming console ports appeared to be the reason for its appearance on the Classification Board website. It was refused classification in February, with the reason being the game's handling of "matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults." 

Earlier this month it was revealed the board would review the application, which has helped to overturn bans for games like Disco Elysium in the past. RimWorld creator Tynan Sylvester had said he was "optimistic" for a positive outcome, and it appears he had every right to be.

RimWorld has now been classified as R 18+ in Australia, the highest rating that can be given. The board referred to the use of drugs in the game as having "a high impact," but determined that "the game mechanics ultimately provided disincentives related to drug-taking behaviour, to the point where regular drug use leads to negative consequences such as overdose, addiction and withdrawal." It also points out how the drug use is "depicted at a distance through a top-down perspective, in a highly stylised, simplified form."

A news post on the game's Steam page read: "We assembled a lot of useful evidence and had a great legal team to help us. Our community was also amazing and helped us by providing examples of games on Steam that had similar cases to us, like Disco Elysium and Fallout. The review concluded with a happy ending."

Mollie Taylor
Features Producer

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.  

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