As you may know, Halo 1-4 all boasted “M” for Mature ratings. However, Halo 5: Guardians, the second Halo game from 343 Industries, ditched the mature rating, and became the first Halo FPS game to receive a “T” for “Teen” rating.
For some, this wasn’t a good change. While many, including myself, didn’t notice any downgrade in the graphic detail or maturity of Halo 5: Guardians from previous Halo games, others did, and didn’t like it.
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That said, many are now wondering if a T-rating is the future for the series, or whether it could return to a M-rating with Halo: Infinite, the next game in the iconic Xbox franchise. And the answer is: 343 Industries doesn’t really know at the moment.
A fan poised this very question to the current director of the franchise, Frank O’Connor, via Twitter, noting that they hope Microsoft and 343 Industries revert to an M-rated game with more blood. According to O’Connor, it’s less up to him and the team, and more up to the folks at the ESRB, PEGI, and other ratings boards. Further, he confirmed that the team has never softened their games to hit a certain rating.
“We don’t pick our ratings and the ratings can change with the times, or the fidelity of content or sociopolitical trends and they’re all different per region,” said the director. “We’ve never meaningfully pursued or evaded things that don’t work in our games to either shock or soften the atmosphere.”
O’Connor continued:
“Don’t get me wrong – we can guess in some regions and stuff like The Flood, performance affecting shades, the legendary but rarely seen decapatron, naturally changes reception – but we’re not gonna shove Shining elevators or candy drops to drive reception in either direction.”
The director further notes that sometimes Microsoft will cut things “in abundance of caution,” but that typically said stuff pertains to geopolitical matters. For example, a Marine name that’s a curse word in Jabrovian or a sci-fi flag that looks too much like a real flag.
“Ratings are thoughtful appraisals of the sum of the parts,” said O’Connor. “Tone, humor, timing, music all affect how the whole fits together – and multiplayer is a different animal – which is why you sometimes read the “experience may change online” and the ratings boards evolve over time too.”
It’s worth noting that Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg has said in the past that that Halo 5’s “Teen” rating may have helped it sold more, as many parents don’t like to buy “Mature” games for their kids. This led many to believe, Halo 5: Guardians was purposefully made with a T-rating, but according to O’Connor, this wasn’t the case.
And of course this leaves the door open for the series to return to a M-rating with Halo: Infinite, but at the moment, 343 Industries nor Microsoft have anything share on the matter.
Halo: Infinite was announced this past E3. In development for PC and Xbox One, it currently doesn’t have a release date.
Thanks, GameSpot.
