Astute Aussies have noticed a discrepancy in the local Steam version of Borderlands. These attentive gamers spotted a file labelled borderlands_low_violence.ncf in the installation folder, which isn’t present in the US version. Alarm bells rang, with the implication that Aussies were being sold a low-impact version of the game. It’s not such a far-fetched conspiracy theory, considering Australia’s stringent Classification Board and lack of R18+ rating.

We’ve just gotten off the phone to 2k Games, and it turns out that yes, the Australian Steam version of the game is a low-violence version of the game.

However, it’s not meant to be.

The full violence version of Borderlands was successfully rated by the Classification Board. Somehow the wrong version of the game has been uploaded for Australians via Steam. PS3 and 360 versions of the game are unaffected, and 2k Games Australia is working with Steam to resolve the issue in time for the game’s local launch in a couple of days.

Hopefully the fix will be a small patch to the existing install, rather than an entire new download of the game. Just to reiterate, Aussies will be playing the full violence version of the game, complete with gibs and all. This was simply an error in the process of uploading the game to Steam, nothing more, nothing less.

A big thanks to the Aussies who noticed this problem and brought it to 2k’s attention. We've been having a ball with the game for the last few days, and would hate to see this minor hiccup dissuading gamers from checking it out. Stay tuned for our full PC review in the next few days.


Watch the Aussie Launch Trailer here