The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) recently debuted their rating for Activision and Treyarch's upcoming
Call of Duty title. Unsurprisingly, similar to its predecessor's
Black Ops 4 is rated "M" and features what many have come to expect from the popular first-person shooter series - that being: intense violence, strong language, blood and gore, and drug references.
ESRB's official description/justification for the rating goes into more detail, specifically calling out the classic zombies as well as (intriguingly) a parasitic creature which emerges from its victim's chest - which does not sound disimilar to the infamous 'chestburster' from the
Alien series of movies and games.
Below you can see the ESRB's full rating-summary:
This is first-person shooter in which players compete in multiplayer matches within military and fantasy settings. Players use pistols, machine guns, shotguns, and rocket launchers to kill enemy soldiers and waves of zombies in frenetic combat. Some weapon attacks can result in decapitation and/or dismemberment, leaving large bloodstains and body parts on the ground; several environments depict mutilated corpses with exposed entrails/viscera. Cutscenes can also depict intense acts of violence: zombies mauling victims from a close-up perspective; warriors dismembering and beheading zombies; a creature emerging from a man's body, ripping his chest apart. A handful of environments depict packets of drugs and white powder. The words “f**k” and “sh*t” are heard in the game.
Though it doesn't feature much that you wouldn't expect, the ESRB do seperately note the return of in-game purchases as well as user interaction - the latter being particularly obvious, being a multiplayer-only game.
What do you think of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's ESRB rating? Does anything, from the summary, jump out at you as particularly intriguing?