Turns out the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI, isn’t just leaning heavily on its Game of Thrones medieval aesthetic in jest. According to its MSRB rating in Brazil, FFXVI is rated mature for its sex scenes, drug use, and fantasy hate crimes.
According to a Reddit translation of the game’s rating on the Brazilian Ministério da Justiça website (their Ministry of Justice and Public Security), Final Fantasy XVI features a cacophony of “extenuating circumstances” like:
- Sex scenes (that are not fully shown) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
- “Intentional deaths” (ㆆ_ㆆ)
- Torture scenes depicting suffering victims ( ಠ_ಠ )
- Drugs use (¬‿¬)
- Prostitution (＃°Д°)
- Sexual content (that is shown and discussed) (。﹏。)
- And hate crimes （⊙ｏ⊙）
crazy they’re putting the limsa aetheryte plaza into ffxvi https://t.co/fa1xzgdpVe
— Liffeh (@Liffeh) November 30, 2022
While this news may come as some surprise to you, we already knew that FFXVI would be more mature than its predecessors because its producer, Naoki Yoshida, said as much in an interview with Gamespot.
“When trying to tell a story with difficult adult themes, these ratings can end up becoming somewhat of a hindrance. And you find yourself changing things that you wanted to do in the game based on that rating,” Yoshida told Gamespot. “This time, to make sure that we could tell the story that we wanted in the way that we wanted to, we decided to pursue a Mature rating in most of the regions that will be releasing the game.”
Despite the salaciousness of FFXVI’s mature content rating details, the aforementioned themes and topics aren’t entirely new for the franchise. Last year, Square Enix updated the guidelines for its MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV, allowing its users to partake in consensual and private erotic roleplaying so long as it was “conducted in a private area.” Granted, bumping uglies or “making love” in FFXIV for the romantics out there basically involves getting your squats in while being uncomfortably close to your special friend. But it’s real to FFXIV players, dammit, and all power to them.
Read More: Final Fantasy XVI Dev Has A Terrible Answer For Why The Game Is So White
Final Fantasy VII Remake also had its fair share of mature content, despite being rated T for Teen for its language, suggestive themes, use of alcohol and tobacco, and violence. Cloud Strife and his band of eco-terrorists were tortured numerous times, nearly sex trafficked, and witnessed domestic terrorism by way of Shinra dropping an entire colony on top of another colony. However, it would appear that the only thing that separates FFVIIR from FFXVI is the level of detail the latter spends both with its dialogue and with how long its camera is trained on FFXVI’s sex scenes and hate crimes.
Personally, knowing that FFXIV features hate crimes moves me to tears. I’m crying ironically, don’t worry (～￣▽￣)～. Why the ironic laughter at fantasy hate crimes? Well back in November, FFXIV’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, poorly explained to IGN why the game’s fantasy world of Valisthea didn’t have any non-white people in it by saying he felt racial diversity would be a violation of FFXIV’s “narrative boundaries.”
“Ultimately, we felt that while incorporating ethnic diversity into Valisthea was important, an over-incorporation into this single corner of a much larger world could end up causing a violation of those narrative boundaries we originally set for ourselves,” Yoshida told IGN.
With that in mind, my mind has been racing a mile a minute wondering both what incites FFXIV’s mature-rated hate crimes and what fantasy group will be at the receiving end of it. Will the Hate Crimes™ be against bunny-eared people? Cat girls? Or worse, the British-sounding natives? The possibilities might be endless, but they’re definitely gonna be some sorta white and, as the kids say, that’s alright.
FFXVI is slated to release on PlayStation 5 and PC next summer.
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