Update, May 24: We Happy Few will be sold in Australia, following an appeal to overturn a ban by the country's classification board.
We Happy Few's Australian sales ban has been overturned following a successful appeal by the game's publisher, Gearbox. The game was initially refused classification in Australia due to its portrayal of drug use - We Happy Few tasks you with surviving without use of the fictional hallucinogenic drug Joy, which NPCs take to attempt to forget a shared trauma.
In a statement, developer Compulsion said that the game "explores a range of modern themes," and offers a "social commentary no different than Aldous Huxley's Brave New World or Terry Gilliam's Brazil."
Not able to play We Happy Few? Here are what we think are the .
In their , the Australian Classification Board stated that a three-member panel had unanimously determined that the game can be classified as R18+, allowing it to be sold in the country. The panel determined that the game's interactive drug use did not exceed 'high' levels, and that the game will be sold with a consumer advice label confirming its "fantasy violence and interactive drug use."
According to a statement provided to  (the statement in its entirety contains some minor story spoilers), the ACB initially stated that "in the board's opinion, the game's drug-use mechanic making game progression less difficult constitutes an incentive or reward for drug-use and therefore, the game exceeds the R 18+ classification that states, 'drug use related to incentives and rewards is not permitted',