Video games that, in your opinion, got the wrong age rating

[doops.]

To clarify, the answers for this can go either way: games that got off with a lighter rating than they should have and games that had a heavier rating when they shouldn't.

To give my examples:

Here in the UK, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor received a 12, whereas Jedi: Fallen Order got a 16, despite the fact that Survivor is way more violent overall, with human dismemberment and everything.

On the other side, it's kind of wild that Hello Neighbour got an E10+/7 rating when it deals with some dark, heavy themes and is overall pretty spooky despite the wacky art style. Same goes for FNaF too; sure, there's no explicit gore or anything but again, one might expect the lore, themes and scare factor throughout the series would earn it an M rating.

 

[Derbel McDillet]

Halo should've always been T rated.

 

[doops.]

Halo should've always been T rated.

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That's a good one. I suppose The Flood is what tipped the scales to M every time?

 

[Hexa]

The Witch and the Hundred Knight had some stuff that definitely should have pushed it to M. Such as the 'joke' with the mice.

 

[nsilvias]

the persona games. people still in their early teens cant play them lol ya pa que quando tienes 17+ anos

 

[PlanetSmasher]

That's a good one. I suppose The Flood is what tipped the scales to M every time?

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It's important to remember the historical context for the era in which Halo came out. While yes, it was a contemporary of games like Soldier of Fortune that were MUCH gorier, it was also on consoles, and there was a belief in that era of gaming that consoles were for kids, so having a huge high-profile first-person shooter meant the ESRB was likely worried about kids being exposed to headshots/etc in a way they likely weren't as concerned about with high-profile violent PC games.

And yes, the dismemberment of Flood enemies absolutely contributed as well.

 

[Dust]

Obligatory.

 

[Bony Manifesto]

It's been a while since I've paid any attention to age ratings, but I remember N64 Perfect Dark being rated 18 in the UK was a problem for me, and I had to cancel my long-held GAME pre-order and traipse round dodgy games shops that didn't mind breaking the law selling it to me! To this day, I've no idea why that was rated 18, whereas something like Turok 2, which was much more gory, was rated 15.

 

[mrmickfran]

the persona games. people still in their early teens cant play them lol ya pa que quando tienes 17+ anos

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Mara immediately bumps those games into the M rating

 

[Rust]

I think this is one of my favourite trivia points.

Goldeneye 007 on the N64 got rated an MA15+ in Australia (to compare, the movie was only rated a PG.)
The reason? Realistic HORROR.

 

[Tea-Stance]

Heart of Darkness (PS1) got an E rating in the US.

All the death scenes that happen to a child

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Obligatory.

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This is a fantastic example. That game is super dark.

 

[higemaru]

Super Smash Bros Melee getting a T stopped me from showing it a friend with extremely strict parents when I was young. Not sure if he'd have liked it but I'd have rather rented that than Over The Hedge ngl

 

[Jawmuncher]

The funniest thing about this is that depending on the reasoning, it can either be

A. The person doing the ESRB rating didn't feel that strongly
B. Certain content wasn't included in the reel sent to the ESRB, thus it wasn't included

 

[doops.]

The funniest thing about this is that depending on the reasoning, it can either be

A. The person doing the ESRB rating didn't feel that strongly
B. Certain content wasn't included in the reel sent to the ESRB, thus it wasn't included

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To the second point, according to the NoClip ESRB documentary, the devs and/or publisher are fined if that is the case.

 

[steviestar3]

Super Smash Bros Melee getting a T stopped me from showing it a friend with extremely strict parents when I was young. Not sure if he'd have liked it but I'd have rather rented that than Over The Hedge ngl

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I still find it really surprising that Melee got a T - I have no idea what it had over the N64 game that increased the rating

 

[eraFROMAN]

To this day, I've no idea why that was rated 18, whereas something like Turok 2, which was much more gory, was rated 15.

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I think Perfect Dark earned it's rating TBH, enemies curse at you (and are pretty sexist about it, too,) blood stays on walls and floors, bodies don't disappear instantly and can be charred and mangled by explosions, etc. I never questioned why PD got a harsher rating than GE in the slightest haha

My answer is probably Devil May Cry 1, it's on the line but there's just demon blood, game could have been T and not caused much issue in my opinion

 

[Bigg]

Fatal Frame infamously got a T rating in the US despite the fact that the plot revolves around ritualistic suicide and a lot of the ghost designs delve into pretty grotesque body horror.

It's way scarier than any pre-7 Resident Evil but it got a T presumably because you don't use a gun.

 

[doops.]

Perhaps this is a hot take, but Starfield probably could (and should) have been reconfigured to be rated T. There's not much, if anything at all, that could warrant or justify it being rated M. In fact, one of the many complaints from release until now is that it's not as gory as Fallout or even Skyrim.

 

[eraFROMAN]

I still find it really surprising that Melee got a T - I have no idea what it had over the N64 game that increased the rating

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I always figured that it was just too violent, being a fighting game with more realistic visuals, to be E-rated, but there wasn't the E10+ in-between yet, so they had to round up.

 

[giallo]

Dark Souls has an M rating, and that's super weird. No language, gore or sex. Some digital monster blood, but that's it.

 

[Necron]

I think this is one of my favourite trivia points.

Goldeneye 007 on the N64 got rated an MA15+ in Australia (to compare, the movie was only rated a PG.)
The reason? Realistic HORROR.

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This one went way overboard in Germany and blacklisted by the USK (="indiziert"). I guess because of those death animations...

 

[Teeth]

We had to lobby pretty hard to make it so Cuphead didn't get an M (or equivalent) rating in....Australia I think?

Depictions of cigars or alcohol (even fighting them!) are a no-go apparently.

 

[doops.]

We had to lobby pretty hard to make it so Cuphead didn't get an M (or equivalent) rating in....Australia I think?

Depictions of cigars or alcohol (even fighting them!) are a no-go apparently.

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Oh wow! I'm assuming you won them over? If so, how did you do it?

 

[Zonic]

I always found it weird that Zone of the Enders got a M rating, moreso the 2nd game (really, the MGS2 & Rising demos were the main reason, but ZoE2 on PS2 was still M despite having no demo), especially later on, when they took the Rising demo out of the HD Collection, along with the PS4/VR version of ZoE2, it got dropped to a T.

I always figured that it was just too violent, being a fighting game with more realistic visuals, to be E-rated, but there wasn't the E10+ in-between yet, so they had to round up.

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This is my takeaway. I remember my mom & I were confused as to why that was T & the original was E, and my mom figured "well, it's probably because the graphics look better. It has Mario, so you can still play it."

Least with Brawl, that made a bit more sense given Snake's weapons, even if Ultimate got a E10+.

 

[Dead Man Typing]

That's a good one. I suppose The Flood is what tipped the scales to M every time?

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If I remember correctly it was the friendly fire and blood decals which got it the M. While definitely not as graphic as other gory games it is still quite shocking to go off script and shoot Captain Keyes in the head.

Enemies also did spray Infinite blood decals and you could make quite a mess and bring down the framerate but just shooting dead bodies.

I think M was fine.

Isn't Crazy Taxi rated M by the ESRB but was rated 3+ by ELSPA (now PEGI). I'm not sure who is right and who is wrong on that one but the correct rating is probably somewhere in the middle.

 

[Teeth]

Oh wow! I'm assuming you won them over? If so, how did you do it?

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To be honest, I wasn't personally involved in the conversations (it happened really late in development and I was head down with everyone else getting the game done), but I think it was mostly about showing greater context of the depictions (in Cuphead, you are always fighting the evil cigars or martini glasses, so we could argue that we were showing "anti-tobacco/alcohol" situations).

And yeah, we got "PG" in the end.

 

[Derbel McDillet]

the persona games. people still in their early teens cant play them lol ya pa que quando tienes 17+ anos

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I mean, you can't show teens shooting themselves in the head and expect a T rating.
Can't be dating your teacher and expect that to get a T rating.
And so on.

That said, Persona 5 Strikers could've been a T with minimal changes.

 

[Zonic]

Oh yeah. Ace Attorney 5/Dual Destinies. Remember when everyone was baffled as to what would've caused that? & then when it got a re-release via the Apollo collection, it went back to being T?

Isn't Crazy Taxi rated M by the ESRB but was rated 3+ by ELSPA (now PEGI). I'm not sure who is right and who is wrong on that one but the correct rating is probably somewhere in the middle.

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It was originally rated T for "mild violence" & either "strong language" or "mild lyrics" for DC & Gamecube/PS2, but then got dropped to E10+ on PS360 & PC.

Another rare case of a game actually getting its age rating dropped, as it feels like most of the time, games get a higher age rating, i.e. going from E to E10+.

 

[Pendas]

Dark Souls has an M rating, and that's super weird. No language, gore or sex. Some digital monster blood, but that's it.

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I think Quelaag's Boobs is what bumps it up to an M.

 

[giallo]

I think Quelaag's Boobs is what bumps it up to an M.

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Ah right.

I thought the lack of any visible areola keeps a movie or game from getting a higher rating classification, but who knows in this day and age. Boobs are still on the same level as graphic decapitations and disembowelings in the US.

 

[mrmickfran]

I still find it really surprising that Melee got a T - I have no idea what it had over the N64 game that increased the rating

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It was more realistic

Smash 64 had more cartoonish violence in comparison.

 

[Skulldead]

Snatcher got T on sega CD in the US. I mean the tester never pass the first 45 minutes......

 

[xendless]

Games reliant on MTX/gacha/loot box get surprisingly low age ratings
Like Genshin/Honkai Impact and Star Rail are 12+ on the app store

 

[Black Mantis]

Perhaps this is a hot take, but Starfield probably could (and should) have been reconfigured to be rated T. There's not much, if anything at all, that could warrant or justify it being rated M. In fact, one of the many complaints from release until now is that it's not as gory as Fallout or even Skyrim.

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Not a hot take, I'm still playing it heavily and honestly, the drugs aspect is the only thing that comes to mind as being deserving of the rating.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

The reason? Realistic HORROR.

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Maybe they're referring to this
Australia had some wild classifications and bans in general

 

[Jubilant Duck]

Dark Souls has an M rating, and that's super weird. No language, gore or sex. Some digital monster blood, but that's it.

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It's a super oppressive atmosphere and those animations imply a lot even if it's never explicitly shown.

Classification boards often cite things like "dread" and "threat" to state that even if you're not seeing people's guts flying everywhere, the game/film/whatever puts one in a mental space that isn't necessarily best for children.

 

[Jazzem]

Snatcher got T on sega CD in the US. I mean the tester never pass the first 45 minutes......

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...woah 😅 Yeah there's no way they got to the decapitated corpse...

Goldeneye a good shout too. Perfect Dark being a BBFC 18 here always seemed a bit much

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Always found it funny that the Wii console itself was rated 7+ in the UK, just because of Wii Boxing 😅

 

[giallo]

It's a super oppressive atmosphere and those animations imply a lot even if it's never explicitly shown.

Classification boards often cite things like "dread" and "threat" to state that even if you're not seeing people's guts flying everywhere, the game/film/whatever puts one in a mental space that isn't necessarily best for children.

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That's such an odd way to classify things. Like, what 14 year old is going to have an issue with Dark Souls' atmosphere? Not doubting what you're saying at all, it's just such an arbitary way to rate things. By the time someone is 16, I think they can handle whatever DS is throwing at them.

I still think that M rating is super weird. It's a T game through and through.

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

the persona games. people still in their early teens cant play them lol ya pa que quando tienes 17+ anos

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Persona games drop a lot of Fucks in their dialogue (especially 5) so thats an instant M rating in the eye of ESRB at least lol

 

[Astral]

I feel like Melee being rated Teen was a marketing strategy or something. I remember thinking it was so badass seeing Smash get bumped to T as a kid.

 

[Sande]

NHL getting 16+ stuck with me.

 

[OtakuCoder]

Insomniac's Spider-Man got a 16+ rating here in Europe, whereas it got the (IMO, correct) T in the US.

I bought it for my nephew as a present and had to clear it with his mother first!

 

[Rust]

We had to lobby pretty hard to make it so Cuphead didn't get an M (or equivalent) rating in....Australia I think?

Depictions of cigars or alcohol (even fighting them!) are a no-go apparently.

Click to shrink...

Oh man, the studies I've done on Australian classification. Congrats on getting it through!

Essentially, if it's showing/depicting a real-world example, then it gets rated harsher. (Examples being morphine in Fallout 4, and smoking a bong through a light-bulb for Saints Row 4.) However, we didn't have a harsher R18 rating for YEARS - if something was too much for the MA15 category, then it was automatically denied classification because it simply couldn't be classified, banning it.

Here's some wild trivia - Mortal Kombat 9 is technically STILL BANNED in Australia. We did not have the R18 rating at the time and it got denied due to having too heavy violence, and was refused classification. However the Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition was rated R18 perfectly fine after the law came to pass in 2013 - meaning that only the Komplete edition was allowed to be for sale in the country. I don't think anyone was going to knock down any doors for holding the wrong copy of MK, but all the old refused classification games held their 'banned' status. EA's Syndicate was refused back in 2011 and hasn't been resubmitted, so it's technically still a banned title.

 

[Rust]

Here's another wild one for the anime fans -

 

[Skulldead]

...woah 😅 Yeah there's no way they got to the decapitated corpse...

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Exactly this, we are the top anime violence of the 80/90 era. It give the tone of the game.... lol

 

[Zonic]

Remember when Gal Gun got rated E by accident on the back of the box?

 

[doops.]

Remember when Gal Gun got rated E by accident on the back of the box?

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This is the future liberals want.

 

[antitrop]

Kids to Adults, huh? The game has half-naked women all over the place and a cheat code for full nudity. But it's a CD-i game so nobody cares.

I put the censor bars on it myself, lol

NSFW: https://tcrf.net/The_Apprentice_(CD-i)#Secret_Game_Over_Screens

Part of the reason rumors surrounding a famous "nude cheat" for Tomb Raider picked up so much steam, games like The Apprentice actually exist. I played it in '94 when I was like 9 years old. I definitely remember being surprised at how horny the game was for a K-A rated title. Even without the nude cheat, there are half-naked sprites all over the rest of the game.

The developer was a Dutch studio that only made CD-i games and they were kind of known for being weirdly horny... It has it's own Wikipedia section: