Arkham Knight gets Mature rating

ESRB has rated Arkham Knight as M, a rating given to games that contain violence, suggestive themes, bad language and blood.

The strong rating was a bit of a surprise to the developers, as the game's director Sefton Hill explained in his recent interview with IGN:

"From our point of view, we never wrote it or made it with a rating in mind. We never did that in the previous two games... We just felt that this is the story that we really wanted to tell. In terms of creating the story, with such strong characters, sometimes they lead you in interesting directions."

Hill didn't elaborate on what occurs to give the game such a rating, but he did acknowledge that since this ends trilogy and every villain is after Batman, things will get a bit dark - but they haven't purposefully added any gratuitous violence or swearing to the game.

He is also aware that some of the fans of previous games can't buy the game due to it's age rating. But he refused to "water down" the content in order to get the rating down:

"I'm not blind to the fact that [the M rating] does mean some fans will miss out... I don't want to be oblivious to that fact. It would have been wrong to water down the game and deliver a story we didn't believe in to keep the game "mass market" or enable it for more people. We feel that's the wrong way to go about it."

Batman: Arkham Knight will be out 2nd of June for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.