When Syndicate was announced a few months back, all looked promising. But according to the Australian Classification board, Syndicate will not be making it’s way to the land down under. Obviously it’s a realistic shooting game, but so are Battlefield and Call of Duty, so what’s the difference? Australian broadcast 100.1 Triple H FM obtained a press release from EA on the situation.

It’s regretable that, goverment policy in AU is denying Adults the right to play syndicate, the game will not be availible in Australia despite it’s enthusiatic response from fans. Were encouraged by the goverment recent agreement to adopt an 18 and up rating for games. However delays continue to force archean censorship on games, cuts that would never be made in books and movies. We urge pocily makers to take swift action to implement updated policy, that reflects todays market and give it’s millions of adults consumers the right to make thier own content choices.

We(EA) are not releasing Syndicate in Austrialia, the reason for this is that we do not have an 18 and up rating as of yet. We will not be appealing the ABC deciscion, Syndicate is game made for mature audiences, and any changes to that would significantly change the game’s quality and appeal. Syndicate will be released in New Zealand in feburary 2012 unchanged.

While that defiantly explains alot, it seems  that there is a weapon in the game that is creating alot of the controversy. On the broadcast they seem to describe a gun in the game that can not only dismember and eviscerate body parts, but can do so to a living or dead person, with graphic detail. Needless to say I think that the ABC is behind the curve when it comes to rating games, I mean if we can have a vampire biting a pregnant woman, while giving birth with blood everywhere, I think we can have a little decapitation here or there.

(Source)