Fans have taken to Twitter to report that PlayStation removed Hotline Miami 2 from sale in Australia and refunded PS5 owners who bought the game. It was added officially to the PS store just over a year ago–almost a decade after its release–but was removed because the game never received an official rating from the infamously strict Australian Classification Board.
Upon the game’s initial release in 2015, designer Jonatan Söderström encouraged Aussie fans to pirate the game since it had been blocked by the ACB. This was mainly due to its inclusion of a skippable scene that showed a simulated sexual assault. However, when it was released last October on the PS5, and even added to the PS Plus Extra catalog, things seemed copacetic for players down under.
This week, players were suddenly greeted with an email and a refund for their purchase, explaining the situation.
“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,” the message read.
“We have issued a refund of the total purchase price for the product back to your original payment method. This may take 30-60 days to appear on your bank statement,” it added. “If your original payment source is unavailable, we will refund the purchase amount to your PlayStation Network wallet.”
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time the game has been accidentally released on a digital storefront in Australia. In 2019, the same thing happened for the Nintendo Switch but it was removed just 24 hours later and is still unavailable.
