Upcoming Hunter x Hunter anime fighting game unexpectedly banned in Australia, with no reason given for the decision

Hunter x Hunter character with spiky hair charging an attack in Hunter x Hunter Nen x Impact.
(Image credit: Eighting)

Hunter x Hunter Nen x Impact is a fighting game by Eighting due out next year, but Australia has effectively banned it by refusing classification.

As reported by Event Hubs, the Australian Classification Board hit it with a Refused Classification. No reason was given for the refusal, but we have reached out to the Board for further clarification.

Australia is, perhaps surprisingly to many given the chill vibe it projects internationally, a very strict country when it comes to video game classifications. It banned Fallout 3 due to its inclusion of what was considered realistic drug use – Med-X was originally called morphine. In fact, on our list of 19 banned games, three were banned in Australia.

It was originally due to launch in 2024, but the release date has been pushed back to allow the developers to implement rollback netcode. This is a technology that effectively emulates online players as local opponents by predicting what they'll do, which helps to reduce latency during online matches. If the prediction is correct, it just happens, but if it's wrong the game will shift to the right inputs. Done well, this should be imperceptible to players. Computers are very fast.

Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.