The realities of war are not as welcome as the developers and publishers of "Call of Duty: WWII" thought, as the upcoming first-person shooter (FPS) gets a scene edited out for the Australian audience due to an implied rape scene.
In one scene from the game, players get to control a female French spy named Rosseau in Nazi-occupied France during World War II (WWII). She comes across a Nazi soldier dragging a woman into a closet while she screams "You're all pigs!." Players are then allowed to choose to either kill the soldier and save the woman or ignore the situation and move on. The latter choice leads to Rosseau closing the door and hearing an unzipping sound. Afterward, the woman can be also be heard screaming "Ah! Get away from me!."
No rape was depicted, though the sexual assault was implied based on the audio and the circumstances in the time period.
This was from the reports of the Australian Classification Board which re-evaluated the upcoming WWII game twice for a local R18+ rating. This was because the original submitted version of "Call of Duty: WWII" was tagged as having "a reference to sexual violence that is justified by context," which was why Activision, the game's publisher, had to remove the part which included the suggested rape. As of now, "Call of Duty: WWII" just has an R18+ rating in Australia for "High impact violence, online interactivity."
The censorship was done in the form of change of dress for the female prisoner in question from a skirt to pants and also the removal of the audio track of the unzipping sound made by the Nazi soldier. The Classification Board of Australia also warned publishers that they have the authority to pull out the game from the market should the developers or publisher violate the initial rating by introducing scenes which transgress the rating parameters later on in the game through downloadable contents (DLC).
Kotaku Australia has reached out to Activision for clarifications on whether the censorship was just for Australia or for all the versions, but the studio has not given any response yet regarding the matter.
"Call of Duty: WWII," regardless of censorship or rating, will be released on Nov. 3 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows.
