Korea's ratings board apparently asked to play GTA 6 early before signing off on it

Caught this over on Dexerto and it's a weird little story. GTA 6 supposedly came close to getting denied a rating in South Korea, and the reason is kind of wild: government officials reportedly wanted to play the game early and get a look at parts of the map before they'd give it the green light.

So it wasn't a content crackdown in the usual sense. Sounds more like the ratings body wanted hands-on time with a build before they'd stamp it. Which, honestly, I can't decide if that's reasonable or completely unhinged. On one hand, a game this big is a nightmare to classify off a trailer and a checklist. On the other, "let us play it early" is a hell of a thing to ask a publisher a week or two out from launch.

why this one caught my eye

We've had a bunch of regional rating stories lately, the Japan one with the install size and the trimmed content, the Australia preload thing. This one's different because it's not about what got cut. It's about the process itself almost going sideways.

• Officials wanted early access to the game
• They also asked to see specific parts of the map
• The rating was nearly refused over it

It clearly got sorted since the game's coming out there like everywhere else, but the image of some ratings board staff sitting down with a controller to "evaluate" Leonida is very funny to me. Imagine being the person whose job is to play GTA 6 before anyone else and call it work.

Almost banned is doing a lot of work in that headline, and I'd love to know how close it actually got.

Also makes you wonder how many other countries have quietly asked for something similar and just didn't make the news. A game this size is going to get poked and prodded by every regulator on the planet, and most of that never sees the light of day.

Anyway, we're days out now. The preloads are already melting ISP infrastructure, so whatever Korea's board ended up deciding, it's happening.

Do you think ratings boards should actually play a game before approving it, or is that just a free early copy with extra steps?

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Source: Dexerto · Curated content.