Batman: Arkham Knight has earned an "M for Mature" rating from the ESRB. It's the first Rocksteady Batman game to do so.
We spoke with Sefton Hill, founder of Rocksteady and game director on Arkham Knight, about why the game earned the rating, what it means for people buying the game, and how, without one conversation, Arkham Knight might have been a different game altogether.
Rocksteady's first two Batman games, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, both earned "T for Teen" ratings. When Arkham Knight earned an M (suitable for players 17 and older), Hill said the team was surprised.
"From our point of view, we never wrote it or made it with a rating in mind. We never did that in the previous two games... We just felt that this is the story that we really wanted to tell. In terms of creating the story, with such strong characters, sometimes they lead you in interesting directions. They lead you because you know who they are and you build the world around that."
The last Arkham games pushed the limits of the T rating in their darkest moments. Hill wouldn't share any specific examples of how Arkham Knight "beat" those games, though he did generally explain why things are going to be more dire than ever for the caped crusader.
"As the end of the trilogy, we have every villain in Gotham working together to destroy Batman," Hill said. "It's unavoidable that some bad stuff is going to happen. But that doesn't mean we changed our approach. We're not including gratuitous blood or swearing. We want to deliver a true end with no compromises, and it takes us to some dark places."
