Silent Hill: Homecoming, the latest game in the survival horror franchise from Konami, has been refused classification by the Australian Classification Board.
A screenshot of Silent Hill: Homecoming. Decapitation, whilst effective, will also make the censors squeamish.
The local distributor of the game, Atari, told GameSpot that the ACB found issue with the high impact of Silent Hill’s violence. Examples used by the board in its report include copious blood spray in the game, decapitations, partially dismembered corpses, and numerous scenes of attacks, fights, torture, and death.
If the developers decide to edit the game and resubmit it for classification, it will not be until 2009.
This is the fourth game to be banned in Australia this year. Dark Sector, Shellschock 2, and Fallout 3 were also victims of Australia’s classification system. This latest ban has some gamers worried that Resident Evil 5 may suffer the same fate in 2009.
Update 30/09/2008 8PM: Atari plans to get Konami to modify the game’s violence so they can resubmit it for a Q1 2009. Via IGN. I’m sure most fans will order the unedited version.
