14 DAY TRIAL // Destructive Creation developer has gotten a lot of attention in the last couple of weeks due to their Hatred game, which was removed from Steam Greenlight briefly.
Although the game is aimed at PC, developers are probably thinking of bringing it to consoles as well, but that will now be harder due to the Adults Only rating it has just received from the ESRB.
This would be the second game that gates an Adult Only rating after Manhunt 2, which doesn’t bode too well for Hatred. The decision taken by ESRB’s officials have probably taken developers by surprise, as one of them took it on the game’s forum to offer an official view on the AO rating.
“Well, I'm not quite convinced why Hatred got AO rating while it lacks any sexual content, but it's still some kind of achievement to have the second game in history getting AO rating for violence and harsh language only. Even if this violence isn't really that bad and this harsh language isn't overused,” said a member of the development team.
The game will now have a harder time landing on consoles
The AO rating will be like a stigma on Hatred, as Destructive Creations will have a much harder time launching the game on Xbox and PlayStation consoles, if they indeed have any plans in that direction.
The same developer explained that they would have preferred to get a standard M+ rating, due to the fact that with Adults Only there would be issues in bringing the game to consoles in the future.
Destructive Creations also implied that they didn’t have any intentions in censoring Hatred in any way in order not to disappoint its fans. This means that the Adults Only rating from ESRB will stay forever.
Even if they tried to do that, it would be hard for Hatred to get a lower rating because one of ESRB explained that it was all about the context the violence and harsh language was used in the game.