Friday the 13th: The Game appears to be every bit as true to the film series as it possibly can be. While this may be a great thing for fans of the series and those looking forward to the game, it may have landed the developers in troubled waters with the ESRB.
Co-creator of the game, Wes Keltner tweeted today that they met with the ESRB and Friday the 13th: The Game is "between an M and an AO."
When talking with GameRevolution, Keltner said he couldn't comment on the ESRB's exact reasons going into the game's potential ratings, but many are speculating it has to do with the game's reported inclusion of nudity. Of course, what's an entry in the Friday the 13th series without naked twenty-somethings?
Keltner told GameRevolution that there is no way they would consider releasing the game with an AO rating, as it would prevent them from releasing on consoles. Many stores also don't carry AO-rated games so it would severely impact their sales.
There have been reports of naked in-game models of the counselors, and, while the developers haven't stated one way or the other if there will for sure be nudity or sex scenes – they also haven't denied it, leaving the door open in case they want to go there.
In a response to a forum question about nudity and gore back in March, Community Lead Ben Strauss wrote "We can get away with quite a bit of stuff to not get an AO. Games like Far Cry 3, The Witcher 3, God of War and plenty of other games have a lot of gore, a lot of nudity and quite a bit of sex. We're confident we'll be right on target where we want to be at without fearing for an AO rating."
And Strauss makes a great point that many other games have gotten away with sex and violence and avoided the AO rating, so hopefully Keltner's further conversations with the ESRB go well and what makes Friday the 13th what it is will not have to be sacrificed in the finished product.
