Despite concerns about its age rating, Elden Ring won’t be getting delayed in Australia. The game has been rated in the country already. The Elden Ring rating ended up being MA, for mature adults only, but you might be wondering why this is a concern.
Australia has some of the strictest video game ratings laws in the world, which can often prevent games from being released there in a timely manner and causing many gamers to have to import the games from elsewhere to get it uncensored. Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2, for instance, spent years fighting to get released in the country in a fully uncensored state.
Considering From Software’s games involve a very great deal of violence (especially in the case of games like Bloodborne, which is absurdly bloody as a matter of course), it’s surprising that Elden Ring was rated in Australia with a minimum of fuss. Elden Ring promises the same sort of content as other Souls games, with the added addition of an open world.
The Elden Ring rating isn’t that much different from how From Software games are treated in other countries, as they’ve consistently been rated as mature games regardless of location. The rating is, of course, due to the game’s high amounts of violence and its themes, which were labeled as having a “strong impact” on players.
Considering that Left 4 Dead 2 and other similarly violent games were hit with a massive amount of censorship to make it more palatable to Australia’s ratings board, the fact that apparently none of that had to happen with Elden Ring is an interesting mystery.
It might be because the violence in Elden Ring is relatively tame compared to other games. Left 4 Dead 2, for instance, included huge numbers of dead zombies, lots of blood and gore, and other frightening imagery. From Software games, except in instances like Bloodborne or Sekiro, are often more tame, and the dead bodies of enemies often show no signs of injury after death, if they remain whole at all afterwards.
Either way, with the Elden Ring rating cemented in most countries, it seems like the game is on track to release on January 21 of next year on the Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC, Xbox Series X, and Playstation 5. There remain rumors of a new trailer or gameplay footage being shown at some point soon.