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The ACB has refused to rate the reboot to the franchise.

Austrailia's Classification Board has a history of banning video games in its country. The Witcher 2, 50 Cent: Bulletproof and more recently, Mortal Kombat have all been denied entry down under. The new Syndicate reboot that was set to be released in February of 2012 can now be added to the list as it has been effectively banned by the ACB.

The ACB has refused to grant Syndicate a rating and this in turn prohibits the title from being sold in its current state. Publisher Electronic Arts has stated that it has no intention of changing the game to make it acceptable to the ACB and will therefore not be released in that country.

The ACB tends to prevent certain games from being released in Australia because the most mature rating available is MA15+, which means that video games must be appropriate for at least 15-year-olds in order to be classified and rated. This has been under scrutiny for some time now, as movies and other media do not have this restriction.

The ACB is blaming the extreme violence for the decision. "Combatants take locational damage and can be explicitly dismembered, decapitated or bisected by the force of the gunfire," one part of the report notes. "The depictions are accompanied by copious bloodspray and injuries are shown realistically and with detail. Flesh and bone are often exposed while arterial sprays of blood continue to spirt from wounds at regular intervals."

"The game will not be available in Australia despite its enthusiastic response from fans. We were encouraged by the government's recent agreement to adopt an 18+ age rating for games. However, delays continue to force an arcane censorship on games - cuts that would never be imposed on books or movies," said EA corporate communications exec Tiffany Steckler. "We urge policy makers to take swift action to implement an updated policy that reflects today's market and gives its millions of adult consumers the right to make their own content choices."