TESO was today marked with “Mature” rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Bethesda’s new MMORPG got this rating for having some of this elements in the game: blood and gore, violence and sexual themes, strong language or use of drugs and alcohol.
In a public statement, developer ZeniMax said that they aren’t satisfied with the decision, but confirmed that they plan to honour this decision by the ESRB. This is the complete announcement from the official TESO facebook page:
The ESRB advised us that it has given The Elder Scrolls Online a Mature rating. While we may disagree with the ESRB’s determination, we do not plan to challenge the rating, and we are unwilling to change the game’s content to achieve a different rating. The game we have created is the one we want our fans to be able to play.
As a result of the ESRB rating, we are in the process of promptly updating everything with the required rating and age gates, including game trailers, web sites, and ads. Thanks for your understanding. We can’t wait to welcome players into The Elder Scrolls Online soon.
Fans already started supporting the developer in a decision not to make changes to the game in order to obtain different rating. This way, ESO will be one of the few MMORPG titles to have Mature rating, which creates a question – how will that really reflect on age structure of players?