Walton Goggins, Aaron Moten, and Ella Purnell in Fallout (2024)

Themes The ESRB doesn't really have themes as one of its classifiable elements (with the exception of Suggestive Themes), but it may classify it anyway. Examples can be horror themes, sexual themes, suggestive themes and violent themes. An example is the Five Nights at Freddy's series: the games are usually rated T for fantasy violence. Fantasy violence could be accommodated at a lower rating (E10+) but the ESRB secretly rated it based on its themes too; the themes just don't show up on the Content Descriptor box.

Violence Since 2006, E can only have mild unrealistic violence (e.g. Mild Fantasy Violence/Mild Cartoon Violence). E10+ rated video games can have Mild Violence and standard Fantasy Violence and Cartoon Violence descriptors. While some E10+ rated video games can have mild blood (and in some rare cases, E rated video games may have blood without violence), Blood (and Gore) is restricted to a T rating or higher. Gore may only be present in T rated video games if the gore is stylized or cartoony, and if it is viewed from a perspective other than first-person.

Sex One game with sexual content, however, got rated T.

Nudity The ESRB, similar to the MPA, is very strict with nudity. The ESRB is very strict with nudity. Games with partial nudity is allowed in T rated video games and above.

Offensive language The ESRB allows religious language for E rated video games ("damn", "hell"), mild language for E10+ rated video games ("b*tch", "crap", "bastard", "piss", "ass", "frick"), slightly stronger language at the T rating ("s**t", "a*shole", "d**k", "p***y", "pr**k", "n**ga") and some racial slurs.

M-rated games that should be T, E+10 and E

Kevin Conroy in Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009)

Roger Clark in Red Dead Redemption II (2018)

Terrence 'T.C.' Carson in God of War: Ascension (2013)

Lists Related to Fallout 4: Automatron

More to explore

Recently viewed