The Witcher 3 has been rated Mature for “blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content” and “use of alcohol.”
When it comes to video games, you honestly don’t get much more mature than The Witcher series. Rife with sex, violence, gore, polticial intrigue and stories of morally gray people doing morally gray things, it’s a franchise that pretty much revels in being for grown-up gamers. That being the case, most were probably assuming that The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt would receive and M for Mature ESRB rating just like the two games that came before. And as (totally expected) fate would have it, it has. Citing a long list of content charges, the Entertainment Software Rating Board has slapped The Witcher 3 with a Mature rating.
According to the game’s ESRB summary, the rating derives from its inclusion of no-nos such as “blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content” and, most heinous of them all, “use of alcohol.” The summary would go on to describe some specific examples from the game. On the violence front, it apparently includes “slow motion decapitations” as well as “an autopsy of a torture victim” and corpses displayed in a variety of unwholesome death positions. In terms of sex meanwhile, the player will be able to “engage in sexual activity with prostitutes and female companions” during which the game will “depict females’ breasts and buttocks” and audible “moaning.” Gamers can also expect an abundant amount of cursing including the words “f**k,” “sh*t,” and “c*nt.”
We’ll let you mentally fill in the asterisks.
What all of this means, of course, is that The Witcher 3 will probably be exactly what fans of the franchise have come to expect. And you know what? We’re happy about that! Sure, surprises can be nice too, but when your game series is already lauded and loved, there isn’t really much reason to alter its tone. This is especially true when you’re already working to expand on your central gameplay with a new open world experience.
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is slated to release on May 19th for PCs, PS4 and the Xbox One.
Source: ESRB
