Rating systems are always controversial, whether for movies, video games, or music. The Halo franchise might have finally gotten the T rating that it should have had from the start, and games like GTA 5 continue to push the boundaries of even an M rating, but somewhere in the middle, there is an even more subjective topic.
The line between T and M-rated games is difficult to draw, especially in terms of violence. What may seem suitable for younger audiences in one game could be too much in others. A few games though have managed to sneak in some surprisingly violent moments, and tested the limits of their T ratings.
Tree Impalement, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
The Uncharted series is a swashbuckling adventure series that let fans live out their fantasies in a globetrotting adventure reminiscent of a modern-day Indiana Jones. Also like Indiana Jones, they do manage to fit in a couple of nightmare fuel scenes.
Arguably the worst of these comes towards the end of Uncharted 2, when Nathan Drake and his allies face off against an armored enemy on a platform sliding down a cliff. When the platform hits the bottom, Nathan gets up to see the enemy impaled through the chest on a tree branch above him. While the camera does not linger, the branch is drenched in blood, and has passed clear through the man's body, leaving a massive hole.
D-Day Invasion, Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 2 may be comparatively rudimentary compared to its modern sequels, and looking back it is relatively tame, but its D-Day mission remains a definite standout. At one point in the game, players are thrust into the famous Normandy landings of World War II.
Clearly meant to invoke the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, the mission features as close to the amount of devastation as the engine could render. Soldiers are gunned down in their landing craft, stabbed, bludgeoned, and burned alive. It may not look quite as impressive now, but at the time this mission was surprisingly intense.
Killing Mission, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Knights of the Old Republic to this day remains one of the best Star Wars games ever made. It had a massive universe, a wide array of powers to use, and a fantastic cast of supporting characters. Unfortunately, if players turn to the dark side, they have the opportunity to have these allies killed.
During the game, players will be joined by Mission, a young Twi'lek girl, and Zaalbar, her hulking Wookie companion. Towards the end of the game, players can force Zaalbar to execute Mission to pay his life debt. The death itself is not graphic, but watching Zaalbar pump round after round into his best friend as she begs him for her life is a tough watch for invested players.
The Prologue, InFamous
Sucker Punch's InFamous is a phenomenal original superhero game not based on Marvel or DC properties. Following protagonist Cole MacGrath, the game's opening shows how Cole got his powers in brutal detail during a massive bombing.
Opening with a terrorist attack in a major city is already pretty heavy for a T-rated game, and the prologue does not shy away from fully showing the devastation. There is little blood or gore, but Cole's face is shown heavily damaged and the streets are littered with dead or dying civilians. InFamous is a dark game, and wastes no time making that clear.
Grimlock's Rampage, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Violence in Transformers games can get away with a lot more because the characters are robots. This is good, because if the characters were humans, the incredible Fall of Cybertron would be a very hard M. The entire game is full of robots being blown limb from limb and is covered in a thick layer of the Transformer equivalent of blood, but when players take control of Grimlock, things get serious.
The hulking Grimlock wields a sword and can turn into a robot Tyrannosaurus, and his sole purpose is to rip apart as many enemies as possible. Players are even encouraged to use special executions, which can decapitate enemies, bite them in half, or roast them alive with flame breath. The oil-soaked rampage may be a lot, but it is also one of the best levels in the game.
Full Dismemberment, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
As the original Star Wars proved way back in 1977, lightsabers are pretty effective at removing limbs. Unfortunately, many games in the franchise have shied away from this to maintain a slightly more family-friendly tone. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was not one of those games.
The game allowed players to hack apart Stormtroopers to their heart's content, severing arms and heads. The Wii version of the game surprisingly took this even further, where enemies could be whittled down practically to the torso. Sadly, this is one of the few games to fully show off the lightsaber's true power.
Ra's Al Ghul's "Death", Batman Arkham City
The Batman Arkham series has always stuck to the darker side of the character's mythos, and one scene in Arkham City fully embraces the mature tone. Towards the end of the game, Batman and villain Ra's Al Ghul find themselves falling from Wonder Tower.
Batman attempts to save Ra's by grabbing him, but Ra's rejects the help by stabbing himself through the chest with his sword in an attempt to kill Batman as well. The attempt fails, and Ra's hurtles to the ground alone, landing spine first on a massive steel "A" above a gate. While there is little blood, the moment is shown in close-up, with the point making it all the way out Ra's' stomach. Ra's may be immortal, but this one still had to hurt.
Decapitation Crime Scene, Snatcher
Graphic adventure Snatcher was one of Hideo Kojima's first titles, and still is considered by some to be among Kojima's best games. Set in a dystopian future, the game centers on robots or "Snatchers", who are killing and replacing humans in the city.
The stylized graphics let Snatcher slide by with a T rating for animated blood, but that does not begin to cover some of what is in the game. Snatcher features several gruesome crime scenes, but the worst of all is a decapitated body shown in full graphic detail, with all the inner workings of the neck sticking out. Even Kojima's M-rated games rarely go that far.
Every Death Animation, Heart of Darkness
To the surprise of no one who has played it, the 1998 platformer Heart of Darkness is not actually rated T. What is surprising is that it is actually rated E instead. The game was targeted at children, and seemed harmless with its cartoony visuals, but boasts some absolutely horrific death scenes.
Along his quest to rescue his dog, protagonist Andy can meet a whole host of gruesome fates. These include everything from being crushed flat, having his spine snapped by flying enemies, being eaten alive, and a variety of dismemberments and disembowelings at the hands of the villainous shadow creatures. Despite being rated E, Heart of Darkness is the stuff of nightmares.
Shazam's Death, Injustice
Mortal Kombat may be famous for its ultra-violent fatalities, but its DC counterpart Injustice is overall a much milder affair. Despite centering on massive super-powered beatdowns, few people actually die. That said, those that bite the dust do so in grand fashion.
Foremost of all the game's deaths is Shazam, the first to question Superman's increasingly tyrannical rule. Superman responds to the criticism by freezing Shazam's mouth shut and burning a hole through his head with his heat vision. Shazam's hood begins to smolder as the lasers make it all the way through his eye sockets in a moment that could be at home in a Mortal Kombat title. Plus, the fact that Shazam is canonically 12 years old makes it even worse.