The Witcher 2’s Age Ratings Are In

CD Projekt sent us over an announcement this morning outlining all of the age ratings The Witcher 2 has been given from the various ratings boards around the world. As the sequel has even more violence, vulgar language, and nudity than its predecessor, these ratings aren’t surprising:

ESRB (US, Canada)
M (Mature 17+)
Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs

USK (Germany)
16+

BBFC (UK)
18
Contains very strong language, strong sex and bloody violence

PEGI (Pan-Europe)
18
Violence, Bad Language

Australian Government Classification Board
Mature (MA 15+)
Strong violence, sex scenes, nudity and coarse language

They also go on to explain why the game needed some minor changes for the Australian market:

In order to obtain the rating in Australia, CD Projekt RED was unexpectedly obliged to make small changes to game content relating to the topic of sex as a reward. Since these changes are quite minor, especially relative to the total amount of content, they are unlikely to significantly affect the overall play experience.

(From the time we started developing The Witcher 2, our goal was to create a single international version. So, we are happy the game will be available almost everywhere exactly as we envisioned it. At the same time, we are disappointed that because Australia’s rating system for computer games does not go above MA 15+, we had to make two small content changes in order for our game to be distributed there at all. I would like to assure our Australian customers that we aware of the situation in their market, and will do everything we can to support them,) stated project lead Adam Badowski.