Halo: Combat Evolved was rated "M for mature."
Halo 2 was rated M.
Halo 3 was rated M.
Halo 3: ODST was rated M.
Halo: Reach was rated M.
Halo 4 was rated M.
Halo 5: Guardians is rated "T for teen."
What's going on here? An M rating is the video game industry's equivalent of a film being rated R, i.e. adult players only. Underage gamers aren't allowed to buy M-rated games in brick and mortar stores (though those ratings often go ignored once a game makes it home). A T rating is a the next step down, akin to getting a PG-13 on a movie.
Are we to assume from this that Halo 5: Guardians is a tamer experience than any of its predecessors? Not necessarily.
According to the ESRB, the impartial body that assigns game ratings, Halo 5 is rated T due to blood, mild language, and violence. That sounds like what we've come to expect from a Halo game.
Polygon noticed that the previous games scored M ratings largely due to "blood and gore" and/or "blood-splatter effects." Since there are no indications that developer 343 Industries intentionally scaled down on the realism in its violence on Halo 5, we have to assume one of two things is going on here.
First, 343 Industries' devotion to the needs of the story it set out to tell unintentionally resulted in a violence level that's less severe than usual.
Or, the more likely explanation, the ESRB's "objective" standards have changed over time to match society's expectations. It happens at the movies; flicks that earn PG-13 ratings today might have gotten R ratings ten or twenty years ago. As society's standards of what's acceptible are altered, entertainment ratings follow suit.
Here's exactly how the ESRB describes Halo 5's content.
| "This is a first-person shooter in which players assume the role of a super soldier searching for a missing character. Players use pistols, machine guns, grenade launchers, and futuristic weapons to kill alien and human enemies in frenetic combat. Battles are highlighted by realistic gunfire, explosions, and occasional blood-splatter effects. Characters can also use 'assassinations' to kill characters by snapping their necks, or by stabbing them with bladed weapons. The word 'a*s' appears in the dialogue, as well as occasional taunts/insults (e.g., 'I have copulated... with your genetic progenitors!'; 'Your father was a filthy colo and your mother was a hole in the wall!')." |
We'll find out why Halo 5: Guardians earned a T rating when it hits the Xbox One on October 27.
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