A lot of people were misled by the gaming media about the severity of Hatred. It’s almost no different than how people were misled about #GamerGate by the same corrupt gaming media. The result is that Hatred was originally pulled from Steam Greenlight, personally re-added by Gabe Newell and then hit with the AO or Adults Only rating by the ESRB after all the controversy was kicked up over the game. But does the game deserve AO? Based on the content alone, no.

I’ve been following some of the rating system decisions after media storms followed certain games around like a bad rash. In the case of Hotline Miami 2, a fuss kicked up over an implied sexual assault resulted in the game being denied classification by the Australian ratings board, which meant that it couldn’t be sold in Australia. At the same time, Mortal Kombat X managed an R18+ rating in Australia. Evisceration and disembowelment is a-okay in Australia, just not pixelated scenes that might imply or suggest sexual assault.

Recently there was a lot of controversy over Hatred being classified as Adults Only, a rating that is usually limited to mostly pornographic games or in some rare cases overtly gory games like Thrill Kill and Manhunt 2. The AO rating is the highest and most extreme rating that the ESRB can hand out.

Just before Hatred’s release Twitch decided to ban games from being streamed with an AO rating, but only if the ESRB rated the game AO. If other ratings boards from around the world gave the game something less than what would be comparable to the ESRB’s AO rating, the ESRB’s AO would still win out. This meant Hatred couldn’t be live-streamed on Twitch.

Of course, from the initial AO announcement for Hatred up until the game’s recent release on June 1st, there was no label or listing on the official ESRB website and asking for clarification on the rating reaped nothing but silence. Before the game released I reached out to the ESRB about the delay in Hatred’s rating as well as how they came to the decision to rate the game as Adults Only but I haven’t received a response.

I did, however, reach out to the ESRB about Mortal Kombat X. Once again, before the game released I asked the ESRB about how they came to the decision that they did to rate the game, and the marketing department responded saying…

“In the case of Mortal Kombat X, it was determined that the M (Mature) rating with Content Descriptors for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language was most appropriate. According to the Rating Summary for Mortal Kombat X, “…players punch, kick, and use special attacks (e.g., guns, fireball, ice blasts, lighting strikes) to drain opponents’ life meters. Battles are accompanied by screams of pain, realistic gunfire, and exaggerated impact sounds; large blood-splatter effects occur during fights, staining characters’ bodies and the ground. Some additional attacks include X-ray views of opponents’ bones, ligaments, and organs shattering/bursting apart.”

Some of you may be aware of just how violent Mortal Kombat X can be, especially when it comes to the finishing maneuvers. If any game would come close to hitting the AO for violence and gore I would imagine you don’t get any closer to that rating than NetherRealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat X.

But did Fatalities actually play a role in the ESRB coming up with the final rating for the game? Yes. According to the ESRB…

“Many of these finishing moves depict over-the-top instances of violence: a character ripped in half; a character’s face sliced off with a sword; a character mauled in half, leaving entrails exposed. The words ‘f**k,’ “sh*t,” and “a*shole” can be heard in the dialogue.” This type of content contributed to the Rating Category and Content Descriptors ultimately assigned to this game. “

They definitely have a detailed account of the content that makes up for Mortal Kombat X’s Mature rating. So if they aren’t keen on responding about Hatred perhaps they have a justification of the game’s content on their website, right? Wrong. Here’s the entry for Hatred on the official ESRB website.

There is nothing but “Intense Violence, Blood and Gore” and “Strong Language” as the descriptors.

In fact, that’s the same kind of content for Gears of War 3 for the Xbox 360, a game made on the Unreal Engine and features visceral third-person shooting action. What are the content descriptors? Well, on the ESRB entry page for Gears of War 3 the game has a Mature rating for “Blood and Gore, Intense Violence” and “Strong Language”. What does the ESRB list as the reasons for why the game is labeled as Mature? Well, they state…

“Battles are highlighted by realistic gunfire, screams of pain, explosions, and large splashes of blood; some attacks result in dismemberment or decapitations that leave body parts and bloodstains on the ground. Finishing moves on weakened enemies depict more intense acts of violence: players can stomp on an enemy’s head until it breaks apart; use a chainsaw-like weapon (i.e., Lancer) to slice creatures in half; and rip off an enemy’s arm to use as a weapon. Language such as ‘f**k,’ ‘sh*t,’ and ‘a*shole’ can be heard in the dialogue.”

It’s actually identical to the gameplay of Hatred, only Destructive Creations’ twin-stick shooter is more zoomed out than Gears of War so the violence isn’t quite as in-your-face. However, the game does feature executions. So with that said, lets take a look at the executions in Hatred, Gears of War and Mortal Kombat X and you can decide which one pushes the boundaries:

Hatred Execution Kill Highlights Montage/Best Violent Moments Come and see Hatred’s gory executions in this highlights montage that shows the top, best moments of violence from this controversial PC game! ================================= Censored Gaming is the definitive resource for censorship – committed to covering every single video game edit as well as comparing all changes made to your favourite anime.

Gears Of War 3 All Weapon Executions HD Only one i can’t put up is the Hammer because its not available yet on the BETA. Enjoy And Subscribe Thanks to my friends and little brother for helping me.

MORTAL KOMBAT X All Fatalities Brutalities X-Rays – Fatality Brutality Mortal Kombat X All Fatalities Finishing Moves Brutalities X-Ray Every Fatality Brutality in 1080p 60fps (Mortal Kombat 10) All Fatalities on ALIEN ► https://youtu.be/gfXt4QiTrJ8 Mortal Kombat X is a fighting video game development by NetherRealm Studios. It is the tenth main installment in the Mortal Kombat series.

Some people have stated that Mortal Kombat X’s fantasy setting makes it less intense and violent than Hatred. The same is said of Gears of War.

Ultimately, people are saying that no matter how extreme Mortal Kombat X’s Fatalities are, even when you actually see intestines spilling out, guts sprayed everywhere and bodies being mutilated to extreme degrees, this is somehow less extreme than Hatred because Hatred is a murder simulator. Technically Hatred is just a better looking remake of Running With Scissors’ original Postal from 1997.

Postal 1 – Single Player – 04.Parade Of Disasters (100% KILL) “10/18/97 A glorious symphony of slaughter! 76 tromboners led the death parade..

Interestingly enough, a justification of ratings based on context seems to be the de facto defense as to why the game landed the AO rating. But as the videos above show, Hatred’s murder simulator context still pales in the actual violence to the likes of Gears of War 3. It’s like saying Uwe Boll’s Rampage (which is actually a movie version of the game Hatred) deserves a higher rating than Evan Gareth’s The Raid because of the context of the movie being about killing innocent people, even though The Raid by far is gorier, more violent and a lot more intense.

I did ask Destructive Creations in the past about whether or not they would censor or remove content in an attempt to get a lower rating but they stated…

“We will not change the game context and content because of AO rating for the PC release for sure. Can’t say too much about consoles yet, we do not know how publishers and other companies will react after PC release. It may occur that game is not as brutal as they assumed it after the trailers and then again weird things can happen.”

But this speaks more about how the media can control the perception of games and how that information is projected to the general public than the content of the games themselves.

The ESRB folded to a media campaign painting Hatred as the Holocaust incarnate and the offspring from an orgy of the Nazi, ISIS, and the NKVD. However, the game has been railed on by some gamers in the user reviews for not being extreme enough and actually being quite “boring”. There’s a lot of positive reviews for sure, but most people admit that the game isn’t anywhere near as extreme as the media let on.

MrLolkins wrote in his user review…

“Even with the controversy, if you’re buying the game to see some extreme violence or over the top murders? Again, other games have done this better. It’s a generic shoot to the face, throat slit etc.”

76% of Steam users agree with his assessment of the game.

Another Steam user, Vox Chaotica, wrote…

“I was told this game was worse than Hitler, ISIS, and the KKK combined, and that I would be a misogynerd terrorist if I played it.

“It’s actually pretty fun, nothing you can’t find in Hotline Miami or GTA, and the dialogue is B-Movie levels of amazing in that it clearly doesn’t take itself seriously. The moral panic/outrage is unjustified – although I’d probably wait until a sale before buying the game.”

So then how can the ESRB stand by a game that gamers themselves are saying are tame compared to the likes of other titles out there? Especially the Manhunt and GTA games? If the ESRB is handing out ratings based on media perception then it’s not only broken but shows a clear bias toward whatever the media is trying to push during that flavor-of-the-month click-bait agenda.

[Update:] The ESRB responded about the Adults Only rating for Hatred, saying…