There’s been a lot of media coverage overnight about Halloween: The Game being allegedly banned in Australia and New Zealand. The developer, Illfonic, announced on X that the game was recently refused classification (i.e. banned) in Australia and that “this means that we cannot sell the physical or digital product in both Australia and New Zealand.” The obvious conclusion to draw from this is that the game is banned in New Zealand as well. Only, it’s not.
Rather, Halloween: The Game has not been submitted for classification in New Zealand. This is an important distinction, because while that means it can’t legally be sold here currently, it isn’t banned—it just hasn’t been given a rating label. Any game with classifiable content (violence, sex, cruelty, etc.) that meets the threshold for a restricted rating (R13, R15, R16, R18) needs a New Zealand classification rating before it can be sold here.
That means Halloween, being an adaption of a bloody slasher film, needs a NZ rating—there’s no way it doesn’t meet the restricted criteria. But that rating hasn’t been applied for as yet, and that is the reason it can’t currently be sold. The game can still be submitted to the NZ Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) for review, who would then decide whether it meets New Zealand’s (not Australia’s) criteria for a ban, or whether it can be sold with an age restriction.
To be fair to Illfonic, their statement is technically correct. Halloween has been banned in Australia, and it cannot be sold in Australia or (currently) New Zealand. But the tweet does imply a relationship that doesn’t exist: the ban in Australia is entirely unrelated to the current inability to be sold in New Zealand, and it would still be the case if it didn’t get banned in Australia, or even if it was never submitted in Australia. New Zealand has its own classification laws and process, and Halloween hasn’t gone through that process.
Also to be fair to Illfonic, there’s an odd relationship between Australia and New Zealand in terms of classifications, and it’s not something an international publisher would expect to understand. A game that gets an unrestricted rating in Australia (G, PG, M) can be sold in New Zealand without an NZ-specific rating. This means that a publisher applying for an Australian classification can indirectly get one that’s valid for New Zealand too, if their game gets a G, PG, or M in Australia—they haven’t applied for or received an NZ label, but they’re benefiting from the way New Zealand classification law treats unrestricted Australian labels. But that only applies for unrestricted labels; anything that’s restricted in Australia (MA15+, R18+) needs a NZ-specific rating before it can be sold here.
This creates a situation where a game gets a restricted Australian rating and then doesn’t release in New Zealand at all because the publisher either doesn’t know they need a separate NZ rating or chooses not to apply for one. These are typically games that would likely be restricted in NZ if they were submitted here, but they end up in this weird place where they’re not formally, legally banned but are nonetheless not available locally. That’s where Halloween is at currently, unless Illfonic decides to submit it for sale here.
I’m no classification officer, but from where I’m sitting, I doubt Halloween would get banned if submitted here. It’s thematically, stylistically, and mechanically similar to Friday the 13th: The Game, which got an R16 here and an R18+ in Australia. The sticking point for Halloween in Australia seems to be the role of drug use “in relation to incentives and rewards”; drug use is a classification criteria in New Zealand, but to my knowledge, we don’t have the same line in the sand around “incentives and rewards” that Australia does.
So, in short: no, Halloween: The Game is not banned in New Zealand. It needs a NZ-specific rating before it can be sold here, and it hasn’t yet been submitted for review by the NZ Classification Office, which means it can’t legally be sold here right now, but it hasn’t been banned. It just needs to go through the normal classification process that any other game with restricted-level content has to go through.
We’ve reached out to Illfonic to find out if they plan to submit Halloween for New Zealand classification, but have not had a response at the time of writing. We’ve also contacted the NZ OFLC, who confirmed that, at the time of writing, the game hasn’t been submitted for classification.
