14 DAY TRIAL // The development team on The Elder Scrolls Online announces that the coming MMO has been awarded an M for Mature rating from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, which is unusual for the genre and might affect the long-term prospects of the game.
On the official Facebook page, the company states, “While we may disagree with the ESRB’s determination, we do not plan to challenge the rating, and we are unwilling to change the game’s content to achieve a different rating. The game we have created is the one we want our fans to be able to play.”
The M rating has not been posted on the official site of the ESRB so we do not know exactly what kind of mature content gamers will be able to experience in The Elder Scrolls Online.
The MMO’s biggest rivals, Star Wars: The Old Republic from BioWare and World of Warcraft from Blizzard, are rated T for Teen.
Other titles in the Elder Scrolls series, including Oblivion and Skyrim, have also received an M rating, so fans should expect to see similar types of content.
The world on which the game is based is filled with demons, over the top violence, complex monsters, alluring female thieves and other standard fantasy elements.
The MMO will deliver a strong single-player component which allows gamers to explore a deep story without asking them to work with other players unless they wish to.
At the same time, a significant part of the experience will be dedicated to Player versus Player and Alliance vs. Alliance play.
The Elder Scrolls Online is at the moment set to be launched on April 4 on the PC and it is also coming to the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony in June, but there are no plans for cross-platform play.