This is bound to be interesting. Rocksteady's other entries in the "Arkham" series have all come to market with T ratings from the ESRB, but apparently "Batman: Arkham Knight," due out in June, just earned itself an "M" for mature from the ESRB. The reasons for it aren't clear at the moment, but it seems the rating came as a bit of a surprise to the development team. It's worth noting that despite the generally dark world of Gotham City, we still haven't seen an "R" rated Batman movie, so this represents the most restrictive rating on a Batman product yet.
"I'm not blind to the fact that [the M rating] does mean some fans will miss out... I don't want to be oblivious to that fact. It would have been wrong to water down the game and deliver a story we didn't believe in to keep the game 'mass market' or enable it for more people," Rocksteady founder Sefton Hill told IGN. "We feel that's the wrong way to go about it. We said we love the story and we don't want to jeopardize that."
"We're not including gratuitous blood or swearing," he also said. "We want to deliver a true end with no compromises, and it takes us to some dark places."
It's rare to have an "M" game where you don't actually kill anyone, so my guess is that this has something to do with torture, or at the very least, something that the ESRB perceived as torture but the developer did not. That's a traditional way to take your vigilante hero "dark," and it's one of the few ways I imagine there could be difference in opinion about whether an M rating is warranted. The villains in the Batman world have always had a bent towards sadism, as well. Whatever it is, Sefton earns himself some points from the gaming community by saying he doesn't want to make the game 'mass market:' that sort of thing usually goes over pretty well in the forum world.
If we're going to be totally honest, of course, I doubt this will affect sales outside of a few isolated instances. After all, some of the biggest games on the market -- GTA and Call of Duty come to mind -- do so with both M ratings and what one assumes are ample teenage audiences. For better and for worse, we're not talking about movies. There, the difference between "R" and "PG-13" could mean hundreds of millions of dollars. Here, not so much.
