Sony Released (and Pulled) Hotline Miami 2 on PlayStation in Australia Despite It Being Banned There

Sony accidentally released Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number in Australia last year despite the game being banned there, and everyone who bought it has suddenly been refunded as the game disappeared from the PlayStation Store.

As reported by Press Start, Australian gamers received an email notifying them of the removal of Hotline Miami 2 from their game libraries and the PlayStation Store. Why? It was never allowed to be released there in the first place.

The Australian government famously refused to give Hotline Miami 2 a classification upon its release in 2015 due to a “visual depiction of implied sexual violence,” stopping it from being legally sold in the country.

This fact somehow slipped through the cracks in October 2023, however, when a native PS5 version of Hotline Miami 2 was released across the world, including in Australia. It remained there for a whole year, even being added to the PlayStation Plus Games Catalog, before an issue was noticed.

“We have become aware that the product Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number has not received a proper rating from the Australian Classification Board and have therefore taken steps to refund customers who have purchased the game,” Sony said in an email to owners of the game in Australia.

Hotline Miami was a fan-favorite indie title of the early 2010s, with the first game arriving in 2012 and the sequel coming a few years later in 2015. It featured fast and furious top down gameplay as players mowed down baddies in myriad morbid ways.

In our 8/10 review of the latest, IGN said: “Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a relentless, rhythmic, and brutal game of killing fast, and often dying even faster.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

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