Some wild stuff is happening right now over at the UK equivalent (sort of) of the ESRB. For the first time since Rockstar’s Manhunt 2 , the United Kingdom Video Standards Council has refused to classify an upcoming video game, effectively rendering it unsellable at retail.
The game is question is Omega Labyrinth Z , an anime-inspired dungeon-crawler about girls trying to increase their breast size that will be published in several territories by pQube and was developed by D3 Publisher. I have no idea to what the extent the dungeon-crawling is, as the game’s trailer spends its full running time on cheesecake. Anyway, the game is coming to North America and other European markets as a “M” or rough equivalent. pQube has stated the game won’t be on sale in Australia (where it received similar treatment), the UK, or Germany because of its content.
A statement from the UK’s VCS states that the organization is required to review and assign ratings to media release on physical media under the Video Recordings Act of 1984. The statement then offers a reason for the lack of rating, citing the game’s sexuality combined with the school setting and implied underage status of the game’s cast. Which, yeah, is hard to argue with.
This hasn’t happened since 2008, with the controversial Manhunt 2 . That game, and a small list of others sharing a similar history, were mostly edited and re-submitted later. This does not currently appear to be the case with Omega Labyrinth Z .
Source: Tanuki Bridge