Katana Zero Beaten By The Board: Refused Classification
Katana Zero, a cool little platformer with some really unique mechanics has run afoul of the dreaded Australian Classification board receiving the nasty Refused Classification stamp. The game’s publisher, Devolver Digital, let the world know today via Twitter.
Heads up to folks in Australia / New Zealand – Katana ZERO has a ‘Classification Refused’ rating and therefore will not be released on Switch in Australia and New Zealand on Thursday.
Our team is re-submitting in hopes to get that changed and we’ll keep you posted with news! pic.twitter.com/VTt9U4Jni3
— Devolver Digital (@devolverdigital) April 17, 2019
Having played the game, I can only guess it is because of drug use, the only thing that makes sense based on the Board’s past decisions. This means, at this stage at least, the game will not be coming to the Nintendo Switch in Aus/NZ. No word on the PC release as yet. That said, it is rather easy to buy things on the Switch from a different region and while here at Player 2 we don’t suggest breaking any laws…well you know what to do.
UPDATE:
Devolver clarified the process in the following tweet:
It was originally submitted through IARC, we will now submit back through the individual boards.
— Devolver Digital (@devolverdigital) April 17, 2019
This means it was submitted through the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), which is being used as a shortcut to save time for the Australian Board and not require them to manually classify every single game released. As a result, Devolver will submit Katana Zero to the Board for manual classification.
Our review for Katana Zero is still coming soon and we will keep you up-to-date with any reclassification news. In the meantime check out our previous episode of Player 2 Plays.