In really unsurprising news, game developer Bungie announced that the ESRB rating for its upcoming release, Destiny, is in fact T for Teen. The company is most known for creating and developing the Halo franchise. Halo had an M rating for Mature. Since I played Destiny at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I can certainly vouch for the T for Teen rating being an apt label for the game.
I enjoy a good depraved, unrepentant M-rated game as much as many other games do. However, a first-person shooter with a unique sci-fi setting like Destiny does not need an M-rating in order to be good. Based on what I played at E3, the T for Teen rating is appropriate. The game contains shooting and violence, but the story and presentation in Destiny come off as quite elegant and high-brow. The game is about as violent as, for example, the Uncharted series, another T-rated franchise.
In fact, it is puzzling that many of the games in the Halo series have an M-rating. From what I have played of Halo, there is very little in that series that really warrants an M-rating. There is violence, but it is not gratuitous. The language is not overly profane. In fact, there are moments in Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Origins that are quite intense, dark and suggestive, considering every game in the franchise has been rated T for Teen. In Arkham Origins, there are implications of a young woman being kidnapped and raped. In Arkham City, it is basically established that Killer Croc is a cannibal. There is a lot more sexuality in the Batman: Arkham games than I have ever seen in the Halo games. No, you cannot go into a strip club and get a lap dance, but Catwoman is quite a hyper-sexualized character in Arkham City.
To be clear, I am not trying to advocate the trivialization of violence with lower game ratings. But these games are fiction and take place in highly fictional, fantastical worlds. In Destiny, you battle malevolent alien mercenaries from other planets. It is not gritty, bloody, gory or over-the-top violence. The developers look like they are aiming to emphasize heroics.
To the fans who are disappointed with the T-rating, it is really not necessary. At this point, Halo does not really earn its M-rating anymore. According to Bungie, the company did not aggressively pursue a certain type of rating. Bungie’s statement on the subject reads, “We wanted our worlds to be a place people felt good about spending time in. We wanted our worlds to be worthy of heroes. For us that meant Destiny would never be reprehensible, but rather bright, hopeful, and adventurous.” So this is meant to be a more heroic story that sounds evocative of something like the Star Wars universe than, for example, Wolfenstein or Doom. An M-rating is not really necessary to pull of a great game, and Destiny looks to be on the right track.
I can’t stand the game its nice graphically. but a next gen shooter with not even a squirt of blood or at least a bullet hole? Once I played the Beta I was happy I did’nt waste my money on this would of been pissed. I’m sure others disagree and praise it.