Halo 5 To Land It Self A Teen Rating.

The ESRB has ruled, and somehow, some way, Microsoft’s Halo 5: Guardians has landed itself a Teen rating. While it seems logical for the largely gore-free Halo series, it is the first Halo game ever to land itself a T-for-Teen instead of M-for-Mature from the ratings board.

What’s different this time around? See if you can tell:

“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.”

Yup, pretty much nothing is different from past games in the series. Either it’s possible the ERSB finally realized they were being overly harsh on Halo, a series that has always been on the very, very light side of an M-rating compared to most mainstream shooters. Or, enough tiny things were taken out to make a difference. Perhaps what little blood splatter there had been in the game has been toned down further, and the complete elimination of the Flood could have something to do with it as well. While not specifically “bloody” the Flood taking over the bodies of the dead and being blown apart by the player may have been enough to make past Halo games rated M on occasion, but then again, what goes on in the minds of the ESRB is a mystery, most of the time.

The question is, does it matter?

For sales? Almost certainly not. I’ve pointed out time and time again that ill-informed parents have made the M-rating almost meaningless in video games, compared to the R-rating of movies which is well known to (often) curb box office receipts over PG-13. Instead, parents will buy M-rated games for their kids like practically any other title, and mainstream T-rated games are often few and far between. The most recent example of a prominent game being rated Teen is Destiny, which again, was also a surprise at the time given its similarities to Halo.

But in the grand scheme of the gaming industry? There are few barriers to M-rated games being huge sellers. The top 20 best-selling video games of all time contain all E and M titles, and no teen games. M-rated games like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and Diablo adorn the list, and the first T-rated game I can even find is The Sims 2 in 29th place.

All this is to say a Teen rating isn’t likely to boost Halo 5’s fortunes on Xbox One any more than an M-rating would, though I don’t think the scaling down will work against it either. Halo isn’t Doom or Gears of War. Visceral violence and gore aren’t really innate to the series (and needless to say, neither are sex and cursing in the campaign). I don’t foresee a “PG-13 Expendables” style backlash in this case.

What a Teen rating might provide is an easier avenue for Halo 5 to become a mainstream eSport. 343 is clearly making a play for the competitive Halo scene to come roaring back, building in spectator casting tools directly into the game including instant replay and those little arrows you see on football broadcasts that show where players are heading. They’re throwing a million dollar tournament, and it’s clear they want to bring Halo back into the competitive scene, as it’s been dormant for a very long time.

A Teen rating can help with that, though it’s not a magic key unlocking the doors of eSports success. Obviously other shooters like Call of Duty and CS:GOare successful eSports despite an M-rating. But a T-rating will make it easier to attract a wider array of sponsors who may shy away from more violent games. It also will potentially allow a Halo tournament to show up somewhere like ESPN, where broadcast TV would be far less likely to show an M-rated game for legal reasons. Ever seen an MA-rated show on ESPN? Certainly not often, if ever.

While COD and CS:GO are rated M, the biggest eSports in the world fromStarcraft to Hearthstone to League of Legends are all rated T (I couldn’t tell you why Hearthstone is rated T instead of E, but again, that’s the ESRB for you). DOTA 2 doesn’t have an ESRB rating, but it would likely be Teen as well, as it features minimal violence from a traditional zoomed out MOBA perspective. These games are more attractive to advertisers and broadcast partners, even if normally M-ratings of games mean practically nothing.

Ratings in these games are often hilariously arbitrary, especially so when the caveat “Online Interactions not rated” is factored in. League of Legends may lack nudity and gore meant to corrupt young minds, but can turn a child into a toxic, hate-spewing troll after interacting with other players in chat. And you can experience enough cursing over your headset in one match of Halo to bump that T to an AO very quickly.

Halo 5 likely deserves to be rated Teen, but then again, so did most of the other Halo games before it. It’s going to be a huge-seller for Microsoft either way, but the T-rating may open up a few more doors in the eSports realm, despite how illogical all of this sounds.

Main Source: Forbes.com