It’s not a firm indication of what might happen with the game going forward, but there are some positive signs that can be drawn.
The classification board has revealed that it will be giving Breath of the Wild an M rating, which shouldn’t really come as any surprise to anyone. But just for thoroughness, here’s the full shot from the Board:
Developers typically submit games for classification when they’re either feature complete, or very close to that stage. Nobody can say anything firm about what this means for Breath of the Wild appearing on the Switch.
It also wouldn’t be the first time a game was classified well ahead of release. The Witcher 3 was originally classified on December 4 2015, having originally been slated for a release that month. But it initially got delayed to February, and then the week after the Board announced their rating the game was bumped again to May 19.
Nintendo could always do the same thing. But generally it isn’t a case of adding new features or fixing up the story at this stage. It’s usually major bug fixing, optimisations and giving the game the polish it deserves.
Thanks, Ryan Smith!
Comments
16 responses to “The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Has Been Rated In Australia”
Hands up who was expecting this to be RC’d.
Why would you expect it to be RC’d?
Yeah, I’m not sure either. This is Nintendo we’re talking about.
Nintendo does not do the rating, there are independant boards in each country or region usually made up of parents, nintendo has no say on the rating, they can control the content to get lower ratings.
I think he was just taking the piss.
Bingo.
Just look at that art, clearly link is going on a hardcore drug-fueled adventure.
Beneficial effects from potions (read: drugs) and rolling boulders down hills to crush enemies is considered too close to real violence that the player is in control of.
Anybody who says our classification system is fine now since R18+ came in has rocks in their head.
Zelda games have been rated M for about ten years now, when they are nowhere near the sort of content you’d expect to see in M-rated content in other media.
The singing shows polluting the weeknight tv schedules are more M rated than Zelda games, sheesh.
This is a real imbalance, what if we had no R18+ still and the likes of Assassins Creed/all the shooters/etc were just a shade more advanced, graphically? We’d see them all banned here and the local industry would die in the arse overnight.
And then we’d see Zelda games classified MA15+ in their place.
You’re making some sweeping statements here that aren’t really based on facts. e.g. there’s no evidence that the presence or absence of particular categories would cause things to slide around. I’ve only ever seen evidence that the classification board keeps a fairly consistent view of things – even if these views sometimes disagree with my own.
Zelda games have indeed been M for 10 or so years now, with good reason – they’re all in 3D now. They’re about somebody stabbing and shooting creatures, often humanoid, repeatedly in a far more realistic manner than when they were 2D.
If you’ve seen the difference in a kid’s behaviour after watching Mario vs Zelda, in how they try to emulate what they’ve watched, then the M rating is understandable. It definitely has a big impact on younger, more impressionable, immature kids.
Yes, Mario is different to Zelda. By the looks of things the “moderate level violence” is what pushed it over the line into M territory. Personally I would’ve thought that the “themes” (all the dark stuff) would’ve been what pushed it over, because seriously “violence” in Zelda games is pretty tame.
That said, Mario games are usually rated G, and personally, I think Zelda should be rated PG. I mean, come on, this is Nintendo we’re talking about.
I’ll be letting my 8 year old play it.
Well, only Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were M. Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Phantom Hourglass, OoT3D and Tri Force Heroes were all G, while Spirit Tracks, Link’s Crossbow Training and Majora 3D were PG.
Just to be annoyingly pedantic about it 😛
I think a lot of games got pushed into MA15+ when they should of been R back before we had it.
Yeah, games like GTA really never should have been MA15+ in the first place (though they obviously shouldn’t have been banned either… thus the need for the R rating).
The system is far from perfect – with games still getting banned simply for having drugs or sex used in certain ways – but it is better than what we had without the R rating.
The bigger issue happening with classification in 2016 is the lockout of indie developers who can’t or won’t engage in that process leaving either gamers high or dry or companies like Steam and Sony to find loopholes in the law to get those games out here
Austrailia seems pretty strict on their rating system, US is much more liberal, most Zelda games ar E for everyobe 10+ except TP is T for teen.
Uhhh, you do know that M isn’t a restricted rating right? Only MA and R rated games are restricted in who can purchase them.
I guess I am confused what does M stand for?
M is typically 15+.
we use to have a G8+, PG10+ (now just PG) and PG(13+).
the rating system in full is; G (anyone), then PG (some “bad” stuff there), then M, then the restricted MA15+, R18+, and X18+. the X18+ is used for porn, just porn.