Nintendo, especially in recent years, has marketed itself as a family friendly console. This is very apparent when looking at game ratings on their consoles compared to competitors. With the Switch on the way it looks like their could be a slight shift. For the first time in a long time Nintendo is marketing a console to the older generations that grew up with their systems. Could we possibly see more games with mature settings and themes from the big N? Only time will tell.
While I’m very interested to see what Nintendo could do with a mature title, I hope they do it right and add a few simple features to make them more accessible. I recently started Devil’s Third on Wii U because I was interested in checking out a Nintendo published ‘M’ rated game. After booting it up I went directly to the settings to turn on a profanity and gore filter, but much to my surprise no such settings were to be found. This really baffled me. Multiple Xbox games in recent years such as Gears of War and Sunset Overdrive have had these features. I figured if anyone were to have such a feature it would be Nintendo. No such luck. This is something I hope they seriously consider in the future. I don’t play ‘M’ games when my son is around, but now that he gets himself out of bed silently after his nap and comes to find me it’s extremely nice to have the filters on when he sneaks up on me. Not to mention most games these days are a bit over the top when it comes to gore and language.
I also think it’s a bit odd that when it comes to localizing games Nintendo always cuts promiscuous sections or adds clothes to nearly bare characters, but the adult language is still fully intact. Especially when the box art that North America gets an angry or aggressive looking character while then Japanese cover has a cute and cuddly mascot, but I digress…
They have published a handful of ‘M’ rated games such as Geist, Eternal Darkness, Perfect Dark, and Ninja Gaiden 3, but I think it’s time for them to develop one in house. I honestly just want to see what they can come up with. Most Nintendo games don’t focus on the story, but I would love to see a story based Nintendo game with mature settings and hard-hitting themes. They could easily have a filter available in the settings they can nerf it to a ‘T’ rating. Here’s hoping the Switch will give us something like this that Nintendo hasn’t experimented with before.
For more info, check out our video: What Do ESRB Ratings REALLY Mean?
Ryan
