The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild has been rated by the ESRB, and its content description reveals breasts, booze and other story SPOILERS fans may care to know about.
Before we get to analysis, here’s the blurb in its entirety. Despite these content warnings, Breath Of The Wild has earned an E10+ classification. For comparison's sake, Wind Waker HD is also E10+, but Twilight Princess HD was rated T.
“This is an adventure game in which players assume the role of Link on a quest to stop a growing evil in the land of Hyrule. As players explore the open-world environment, they can forage for materials, explore shrines and engage in melee-style combat against fantastical creatures (e.g., goblins, skeletons, centaurs). Players use swords, axes, clubs and bows to defeat enemies that generally disappear amid puffs of smoke. One brief sequence depicts a battlefield strewn with the bodies of enemy creatures; in the background, a few bodies appear to be impaled by spears. The game contains some mildly suggestive material: fairies with moderate cleavage and/or exaggerated-size breasts; dialogue such as ‘I get to see a young hunk draw a bow again?’ and ‘If I have to have something pounce on me, why couldn’t it be a lady?’ During the course of the game, a shop owner tells Link that she only serves ‘…drinks that are definitely just for adults…’; players can also encounter a drunken character that occasionally hiccups.”
Considering the final label, we imagine none of these instances are too overtly mature, but some of them are surprising. The fairies with “exaggerated-size breasts” don’t shock us much given how they generally appear in mythology, but the offhanded mentions of “drinks that are definitely just for adults” and ladies pouncing on men are at least a little risque for Nintendo Of America. That being said, the game’s more complex systems definitely cater it to a more mature audience. In that sense, some minor adult humor seems appropriate.
Above all else, the fact that we have a ratings description for Breath Of The Wild is just one more sign that its release date is almost upon us. We’re dying to know what that cluster of dead bodies means for the story too, and we’re less than two weeks away from being able to get an answer.
The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild comes to Switch and Wii U March 3.
Are you surprised by anything in the Breath Of The Wild rating description? Are these story elements par for the course in The Legend Of Zelda? Tell us in the comments section!
