DayZ Is Being Modified After Australian Weed Ban In Unreleased Version

Bohemia is going to adapt the game DayZ worldwide to avoid a ban by an Australian approval authority. So there will be no special version for Australia. The ban is linked to the presence of weed in an unreleased version of the game.

Bohemia Interactive says it is adapting the zombie survival game globally because it “don’t want Australian players to be separated from the rest of the world.” The developer tells Kotaku that it wants to avoid “regional lag” in the game and keep the game as a place to meet friends. To that end, the globally released version of the game is currently being tweaked with the aim of keeping the gameplay as authentic as possible so that players are not affected by the changes.

Bohemia has not said exactly what changes will be made, and Australian distributor Five Star Games also declined to provide further information. According to Kotaku’s Australian branch, the Classification Board has indicated that its negative decision to allow the physical version of DayZ is only available for access under Australian open government law.

However, Kotaku Australia previously quoted from the Classification Board’s judgment, which shows that the committee is disappointed that the use of cannabis as a reward is in the game. Curiously, however, this drug is not yet in the live version of the game and it is therefore still unclear whether and how weed will become part of the game world. Cannabis would only appear in an experimental version of DayZ.

A week ago it was announced that the Australian inspection committee refused to assign an age designation to the physical version of DayZ. That is in fact a refusal to allow the game on the market. However, the digital version has been available as an Early Access title since 2013, and so has Australia. Five days ago, Bohemia informed PCGamer that the matter was escalating; In Australia, in addition to the physical version, the digital version of DayZ has since been removed from the Xbox and PlayStation online store.