Bungie decides against changes to keep teen rating

Since Amazon.com put up their page for pre-ordering Halo-- including box art-- some fans have been wondering about that big M seen there, because it looked disturbingly like an ESRB rating.

Well, it is.

Matt has posted on the b.org forum that the ESRB reconsidered Halo's original rating of Teen -- which still shows on their site-- and upped it to Mature . While they could have made some changes to keep the T rating, Bungie decided against it.

Although the Xbox does have a built-in parental control, Matt goes on to say, all it does is stop games above a certain rating from running unless a password is entered. And although it might have been possible to implement an in-game content control system (like Myth's lock no blood option) this would not have affected the rating, which is based on the content at the maximum allowable level. So in Halo there is no such control.

The new rating will mean that Halo will not be available in some locations, and purchasers will need to be at least 17 years old.