The makers of a video game which was outlawed for being "sadistic, brutal and bleak" have finally had the ban lifted after an extended legal battle.
Horror title Manhunt 2, made by the successful British games developer Rockstar, has been granted a certificate after a nine-month fight with the British Board of Film Classification.
Last June the BBFC refused to grant a rating to the game, effectively making it the first to be banned in the UK for a decade.
The game – in which players take the role of a patient who escapes from an asylum – was accused of unremitting and gratuitous violence, with BBFC director David Cooke saying that Manhunt 2 could not be given had been rejected because of its "sustained and cumulative casual sadism".
The game's makers rejected those accusations, and said that the game was no more violent than many mainstream horror films. However, when a modified version of the game - with some of the more gruesome sequences removed - was again rejected, the matter became subject to a legal game of cat and mouse.
It eventually ended at the high court, where the BBFC's decision was overturned and the UK's censorship arbitration body, the video appeals committee (VAC), granted the certificate.
An edited version of the game will now be released with an 18 rating.
"We are pleased that the VAC has reaffirmed its decision recognising that Manhunt 2 is well within the bounds established by other 18+ rated entertainment," Rockstar said in a statement.
Lawrence Abramson, a partner at Harbottle & Lewis who represented Rockstar in the case, said that the entire censorship system needed to be rethought to take account of the video games industry.
"The system works in films, but the gameplaying experience is different," he told the Guardian.
The BBFC refused to comment.
Source: The Guardian
