Schedule I Disappears From Australian Steam, Leading Many to Believe It Got Banned
The game's developer Tyler has addressed its sudden removal.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Saints Row IV, We Happy Few, Outlast 2, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, GTA: San Andreas – what do all these games have in common? If you've read this article's headline, you probably have already figured out: all of them were at some point in time banned in Australia, a country notorious for its strict video game censorship laws.
With Australia's approach to age classification often rivaling that of China and Germany in its restrictiveness, it's no surprise that many assumed Schedule I – a drug kingpin simulator and the most popular indie game of 2025 – had been banned there when the game mysteriously disappeared from the Australian version of Steam.
When word spread online that Schedule I had seemingly been banned, the community quickly jumped into action – sharing workarounds to bypass the restriction via VPNs and "yar har, fiddle de dee methods," flooding social media with 1984 memes, and generally mocking the Australian government for being so uptight about in-game depictions of illegal substances. And while criticism of the country's age rating system is definitely warranted, it ultimately turned out that Schedule I wasn't actually banned, though its disappearance was indeed tied to age ratings, or more specifically, the lack of one.
According to a recent tweet from the game's developer Tyler, Schedule I wasn't banned but rather temporarily hidden from the Australian Steam because it hadn't received an age rating – something he believed was only necessary for console and physical releases.
He mentioned that he's already in contact with the ratings board and working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, so the game will likely return to the store in the coming days. However, given that the game's main shtick is drug manufacturing and dealing, along with a host of other criminal activities, it is, unfortunately, still not impossible for Schedule I to get prohibited outright, and all but guaranteed to be given the R18+ rating.
Download Schedule I on Steam, unless you're from Aussieland yourself, and don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
