Rocksteady’s taking Batman to some dark places in Batman: Arkham Knight. The ESRB’s given the game a mature rating for scenes that could cause distress for someone not of aged mind. All the previous games have received a Teen rating.
In a brief bio of the game published to their site, the ESRB’s explained what sequences made the game deserve its rating. The bio has the added side-effect of getting me all excited to get my hands on Arkham Knight as soon as it releases.
There are no story spoilers in the below bio but if you want to remain absolutely in dark about what happens in the next Batman you may not want to read on.
The ESRB say you’ll be exploring Gotham, battling several different villains who are trying to take over the city. As in the previous games, you’ll fight criminals in, examine crime scenes, and rescue hostages. All with wonderful slow motion-enhanced combat and fancy gadgets.
The bat mobile is the big new addition to Arkham Knight and, you’ll sweep the city shooting at enemies with a (non-lethal) machine gun and cannon.
In one sequence “a vehicle’s wheels are also used to torture an enemy.” It sounds like that’s not the bat mobile doing the torturing but it’s not clear whether it’s batman who’s the assailant or the victim in that scene.
There’s also a number of scenes where people are executed “(on and off camera) while restrained or unarmed.” And another scene where someone’s tortured, this time “on a bloody operating table.” Which Batman villain do you think would be doing that?
There’s also one line in the blurb which has me itching to play and find out more: “during the course of the game, players can shoot unarmed characters and a hostage.” That’s not very Batman at all. So what would compel the non-lethal Bruce Wayne to shoot people?
On the language front you’ll hear people say “the words ‘b*tch,’ ‘gobsh*te,’ and ‘a*s’”.
I definitely think more games should use the word gobshite. It’s massively overlooked as wholesome swearing vernacular.