Last month, Compulsion Games’ upcoming dystopian adventure game We Happy Few was denied classification by the Australian Classification Board, meaning the game will essentially be banned in Australia once it launches this coming August. However, the board has now announced that it will consider an appeal of the denial next month, which means Aussie gamers might just get to play it after all.
The specific issue that the Australian Classification Board had with We Happy Few pertained to the game’s perceived glorification of drug use. In We Happy Few, citizens of the fictional 1960’s town of Wellington Wells take a drug called Joy to blanket their horrific memories of World War II with a euphoric haze of happiness. In order to escape the town’s authoritarian grip (happiness is mandatory in Wellington Wells), the player’s character refuses to take Joy, but as part of the game’s mechanics, they can imbibe small doses of the drug to “blend in” and move about more easily without risk of being ousted as a “downer” (i.e. someone who has deliberately refused their daily dose of Joy).
It’s this purposeful imbibing of Joy that raised red flags with the Australian Classifications Board:
“A player who takes Joy can reduce gameplay difficulty, therefore receiving an incentive by progressing through the game quickly. Although there are alternative methods to complete the game, gameplay requires the player to take Joy to progress. In the Board’s opinion, the game’s drug-use mechanism of making game progression less difficult, constituted an incentive or reward for drug-use. Therefore, the game exceeded the R18+ classification because of the drug use related to incentives and rewards.”
Fortunately, the Australian Classification Board will be reconvening in just a few days (the meeting is set for next Tuesday, July 3) to consider an application it has received to review We Happy Few’s classification denial. The application was assumedly filed by Compulsion Games, and it might mean that the Australian version of We Happy Few functions in a different manner than the versions released in other regions. For example, Australian players might not be able to take Joy in-game, instead relying on another gameplay system to blend in.
We’ll know more after the July 3 meeting, but in the meantime, Australian gamers can rest a little easier knowing that their hopes of playing We Happy Few aren’t completely dead. For more on We Happy Few, be sure to read our coverage of the game’s pre-order incentives. Also, our recent look at PUBG’s creepy Sanhok mannequins could be just the thing to lift your spirits should the ruling go south a second time.