Grand Theft Auto III has just been rated by the Australian Classification Board

Grand Theft Auto III has just been rated by the Australian Classification Board, as spotted by Twitter user Nibellion. 

This is strange because by my calculations, the year is 2019 and not 2001, though I’ll admit to human error. If we continue to assume the year is 2019, why would a rating for this game pop up in this day and age? 

Grand Theft Auto III has a rocky relationship with Australia. After its initial release, the Office of Film and Literature Classification banned the game due to its sexual content and violence towards sex workers. As such, Take-Two Interactive made appropriate changes to re-release the game in Australia, and Grand Theft Auto III came out again with a MA15+ in 2002. 

So, it could be a release of the initial game with the sexual content and violence added back in. Though it’s a possibility, that seems a little odd to me. I presume the Aussie masses were not campaigning for an original Grand Theft Auto III release down under. The game was included in the PS2 Classics for PlayStation 4, and rendered in high definition, so we could rule out a remaster.

The prevailing theory right now is that Grand Theft Auto III could be being ported to Switch, hence the the rating. None of the GTA games are on the portable platform, and the comparative scale and simplicity of the PS2 classic could mean it’d be a suitable fit. Another thought is that it could be coming to Google Stadia as one of its monthly additions to the Stadia library.

Neither Take-Two Interactive nor Rockstar Games has acknowledged the rating, but we’ll keep you updated once we know more.  Also, Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC was rated by the Australian Classifications Board earlier this week, along with a new Mafia trademark appearing at the United States Patent Office.