Zombie Survival MMO ‘DayZ’ is Set to Be Banned in Australia Over Its Depiction of Marijuana Use

Australia has been notorious for taking a hard line on the depiction of drugs, sex, and violence in games over the years, and although zombie survival MMO DayZ has already been granted a release there, it looks like it will be pulled from sale in the country due to the game’s inclusion of Marijuana.

The Classification Board had recently blocked the physical sale of the game despite it passing with an MA15+ rating repeatedly. Now, according to Kotaku Australia, the Board is out to pull the game from digital storefronts too.

The report from the board declared DayZ‘s ban came after it was discovered that  “illicit or proscribed drug use related to incentives or rewards” featured in the game. The key discovery being as follows,

 “One of the options to restore the player’s health is a marijuana joint, labelled ‘cannabis’, which is denoted by a cannabis bud in the player’s inventory.”

Drug use is fine under Australia’s R18+ rating, but not if it is deemed too realistic and/or detailed, which he report has decided is the case as it’s seen as a reward or incentive, and thus the game has been refused classification.

The kicker here is that currently, you can’t actually use the offending item in the game, which flies in the face of the report. Still, this doesn’t look like it will prevent the game from being scrubbed off PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam storefronts in Australia until the situation is resolved one way or another.

Looking at horror’s storied history with bans in media, this feels relatively strange, especially with the knowledge it’s for something that can’t even be used at present.