jdreyer wrote on May 2, 2020, 18:41:
Would this have been banned outright in Australia in the past?

Possibly. Australia's always been fairly lenient with straightforward violence in the past. The main reason why stuff gets banned is if there's sexual violence or drug use related to "rewards". (E.g GTA3 was banned back in the day because you could have sex with a hooker, then run her over and collect money (a "reward") from her body after.)

So there could be drug use and sexual violence, or "references to" it, in this game, but if the player doesn't get rewarded for doing those things it might still have been OK in the past. And even today, if the player were rewarded for those things it might have still been banned. That's what's written in the guidelines, i.e. "Implied sexual violence related to incentives and rewards" results in "Refused classification" (banned).