Halloween: The Game Won’t Be Sold in Australia, and Weed May Be the Reason Why
Aspiring slashers will need to wait until September 9 to play Halloween: The Game, but players in Australia and New Zealand won’t get the opportunity at all. The Australian Classification Board has denied the game a rating for sale in both territories, citing the presence of a controlled substance as the reason for rejection.
While the board didn’t elaborate extensively on its decision, the likely culprit has been identified: a gameplay mechanic that allows players to smoke cannabis to reveal Michael Myers’ location on-screen. Content creator Slash ‘N Cast revealed this feature during a Halloween: The Game demonstration at PAX East in March, noting that smoking weed provides a tactical advantage by making the killer’s position visible to players attempting to survive.
The game features an asymmetrical multiplayer structure where players can either assume the role of the brutal killer or attempt to evade him. However, this particular mechanic—combining controlled substance use with interactive gameplay—appears to have crossed a line for Australian regulators, who likely viewed it as promoting drug use in a video game context.
This marks a significant barrier to the game’s commercial viability in the region, as Australia has historically taken a strict approach to content involving substance abuse, particularly in interactive media where player agency is involved. The rejection represents one of the few remaining territories where games face outright bans rather than age-gating or content modifications.