Nah I could see it watered down but not getting the AO rating.

If not a single Silent Hill game was able to get an AO rating, Mortal Kombat never will.

Silent Hill has dished out some really sick shit over the years, and the ESRB finds it just fine. Surely, MK will slide on by, too.

None of the Silent Hills are even close to gory. I'm not counting Homecoming and Downpour's bullshit either.

I feel like people always bring this up whenever a new MK comes out.

MK will not be an AO rating until games become digital only downloads. Even then, I highly doubt it. Any major retailer will refuse to sell a game with an AO rating.

I am not an ESRB expert, but I think it would be hard to get AO purely off of violence, even if they tried. The violence is technically not realistic since it's based off of magic and stuff like that. No one can actually recreate the majority of these fatalities and that's the difference between this and something like Manhunt where everything was realistically possible.

AO is financial suicide. Even if the ESRB was going to give it that, NRS would probably tone it down to avoid that.

If it came between censoring the game, or having and old-school "blood code" that showed off uncensored fatalities, which would you pick?

Blood code! Bringing it back old skool!

Once in a LONG while, games can initially get slapped with an AO for violence, such as Manhunt 2 or even The Punisher. However, these seem to be cases of full on torture as opposed to flat out killing someone.

Also, an article I read says that as long as the content is within the context of the franchise, it can be more excusable. The first thing most people think when they hear Mortal Kombat is blood and gore flying about everywhere.

Now, could this initially receive an AO? Possibly... but it's 99.9999% likely that they'd go back and have to alter it to get an M if this were the case. Hell, we know they censored one of Joker's fatalities in MK vs DC to get a T rating in the US. But it was uncensored in other countries. Hell, if for some odd reason MKX had to be censored in the US, perhaps a UK version would be less censored with the "PEGI 18" certificate.

Of course, this is all speculation. We'll find out sometime though...

Mortal Kombat kind of sets the bar for the ESRB so it's unlikely. If Scorpion's "Fatality" and Cassie's "X-Ray" remain unaltered then the game could certainly be denied classification in Australia and Germany.

Dont get me wrong, but why are you guys so worried it will get a AO rating? If ur old enough to play it you can buy it anyways lol i dont see why ya'll are so worried, i would pray it gets a AO rating, the more brutal the better.

Because we want the game to sell as many copies as possible because we care about the franchise...

Can totally see this MK getting refused classification or toned down For Australia, even though we now have the R18 game rating.. *sigggggghhhhh*

No, the game will not get an AO rating. Yes, it may get banned in Australia; the continent seems pretty sensitive.

I don't know what's more amusing, the naive ignorance or the bloodlust. No retailers sell AO games dude, it's essentially a death warrant. They'd have to remove what ever the offending culprit was. Not only that, but streaming services like Twitch do not allow AO games.

It seems to me, at least in the states, that games with sexual content are more likely to receive an AO rating than games with outrageous violence.

Well Red Ded Redemption had a full blown sex scene in the game, and it still received an 'M' rating.

I see no reason for this game to receive an 'AO' rating just on the basis of violence. I mean hell....it's Mortal Kombat.

Should this game be AO? It wouldn't even reach most of the retailers shelves. And NRS could start to kiss their asses goodbye for the association to WB. Maybe that's crazy but that's what i think.

Yeah, violence doesn't matter much in North America so an explicit game about drugs, sex and crimes has more chance of having that AO rating. Maybe some continents will refuse its classification like it did with MK9 if i remember correctly. But i would bet against someone who tells me that MK has chances to see itself granted the AO rating.

No AAA will ever be AO. The content will be removed or toned down to get a M rating. Parents still buy their kids M rated games, there is 0 chance they'd get them an AO... as no retailer would sell it.

You don't see Xrated films next to Frozen on the DVD rack at Walmart.

The thing is I don't really see why can't cassie's Xray pass with an M rating. Sniper Elite clearly shows testicles crushed with bullets. Scorp's fatality is close to the of Equilibrium's scene. U absolutely can't cut a man's skull with a coronal section with a sword this way.

It's not an issue of them not being able to show the fatalities. Boon said he just wants to keep some things hidden to build up the hype.

Really?! Wow I only started using Twitch like since last Oktober, I seriously didn't know they didn't alow for AO games to be streamed.

If Manhunt 2 can get an initial AO rating due to violence, then MK is not immune to this. They were pushing it big time with the last game (seriously, vomiting in Noob's X-Ray? Kung Lao's buzzsaw fatality starting at the crotch?), and they're going even further here, from what I've seen.

Despite that I know this game wouldn't get that raiting, they could sell the game still but you'd have to ask for it. I mean that's what they did with the Atari sex games the console sold. But then again, that was back in the 80s...