It's a rare moment when a game contains enough explicit content that the ESRB comes back with gaming's equivalent of the “kiss of death,” but Hatred, the game surrounding a mission of genocide, managed just that on Friday, as the ratings board handed the game an Adults-Only (AO) rating. But it's rarer still when the recipient doesn't edit the game to drop down from an AO to a Mature (M) rating. Gauging from Destructive Creations' response, that doesn't seem likely either.
“I'm not quite convinced how Hatred got [an] AO rating while it lacks any sexual content, but it's still some kind of achievement to have the second game in history getting [an] AO rating for violence and harsh language only,” said developers on the game's official forum.
“I would prefer to get a standard M+ rating, because with AO we will have problems to get to consoles in the future,” the post continued, citing the Big Three's refusal to publish games with an AO rating. “But on the other hand I think you guys (the fans) would be disappointed with it,” in reference to editing.
