Watch Dogs' delay hasn't just meant months of bug squashing and fixes. The team also found the time to add some new content to the game, some of which has seen its rating bumped to adults-only in Australia.
The original rating for the Watch Dogs due last year was MA15+, meaning only those over the age of 15 could buy it. The game's new rating, however, is R18+, meaning only those over the age of 18 can buy it.
Kotaku Australia has some of the details. Here's the important stuff:
"The game contains references to sexual violence that cannot be accommodated in the MA15+ classification category, which states that "sexual violence, implied or otherwise, is not permitted"," the report reads.
The report makes specific reference to one scene dealing with human trafficking. One character inspects the women, feeling her breasts and "spreading her legs" before pulling a nearby character into a room, where the presumption is — as shown by a later scene — that she is then sexually abused.
"The room is set up with video cameras and filming equipment and as the male moves away from the bed several blood spots are visible on the bed sheets," states the report. "On-screen text identifies the woman as a nineteen year old, Romanian immigrant."
Ubisoft later confirmed with Kotaku Australia that this scene is new to the game, having been added since its late-2013 delay.
This is a strange and interesting case. Unlike most unreleased games, Watch Dogs was for all intents already finished by the time it was delayed last year, the hold-up supposedly just so Ubisoft could tie all the game's systems together.
But here it is with new content. New content that surely somebody a Ubisoft knew would result in a ratings change somewhere (read: always Australia, always), but they went and did it anyway.
That might cost them a few sales, but I guess somebody felt the scene, whether it's there to make a bleak city bleaker or a bad guy badder (I'm guessing it's the same trafficking referenced in a 2013 trailer, which the image up top is from), was worth it.
Watch Dogs Re-Classified As R18+ Due To Newly Added Scenes Featuring Sexual Violence [Kotaku Australia]