Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Earns Mature Rating, Includes "Sexual Violence"

[TiberiusEsuriens]

it is something that developers and writers should definitely handle with care. How exactly Ground Zeroes employs it, in turn, is something we'll have to wait and see.

It's ok guys, Kojima has repeatedly proved that he can handle sexuality with delicacy and grace.

/sarcasm

 

[Silver Patriot]

Good job I just finished building a survival bunker under the stairs, I can already sense a tsunami of feminists coming to sweep away any rational thought and brand Hideo Kojima 'Super Rape-Hitler' for this.

Personally I'm intrigued by this bit:

a character's intestines exposed during a dramatic procedure to remove an object

Maybe there will be a tiny Metal Gear that pretends to be a chest burster? I can only hope.

This scene was actually shown during the "Red Band" version of the TGS trailer.

 

[Lieju]

Murder/killing is powerful because it is an end, whatever the victim was doing before can no longer be done. Literally everything else is a modifier. Talking, fighting, imprisoning, drinks 'n' drugs, embarrassment, receiving treatment etc all these things modify behaviour.

In this way, rape is like torture and imprisonment/kidnapping.

The other type of rape, where the rapist just wants to get their rocks off, is just like when the bad guy kills innocents for no reason; except less bad because the victims survive.

Yes, but there are many problems with how rape is often presented in media.
From a story-telling point of view, a murder and death is about those people left behind.
Rape/torture is about the victim. It's a story that should be about the victim's point of view, much more so than a murder should.

But way too often the story is told in a way that focuses on the pain and feelings of the father/husband/brother of the rape victim, not the victim itself.

Another problem is with how rape and sexual assault is put in there to get in sex and sexually titillate. (Because consensual sex is BAD, especially if it's women seeking sex actively. Better just write it so they get sex forced on them.)

Rape can be presented in all kinds of media, but there's no good track record on this.

Especially with Kojima. The treatment of the Beauty and the Beast-unit in MGS4 was horrid. ("Let's sexualize these tragic victims of war!")

But I guess we'll see.

 

[hermes]

Wait... why is this a surprise? I though pretty much every previous MGS games had mature content...

 

[Lieju]

What? That doesn't make any since. You are letting your on personal taste dictate on how to tell a story, and setting it as an absolute. I'll say it again just like the last time someone brought up rape in videogames. Videogames had players rape and be raped, and had used rape in videogames damn near it's birth. Rape isn't a new concept to videogames, and people need to stop treating it like it is a new concept, just because they have personal issues with rape, or think everyone else has issues with rape.

Maybe, but using it well in a story without coming across as creepy or immature is a pretty new concept.

I'm not saying there is just one way to tell a story, but I do think it's creepy how often rape is treated as something that mainly affects the men closest to the victims.

 

[deathbydeath]

Personally I'm intrigued by this bit:

a character's intestines exposed during a dramatic procedure to remove an object

Maybe there will be a tiny Metal Gear that pretends to be a chest burster? I can only hope.

If I recall correctly from one of the trailers, I believe people were smuggling blocks of (presumably) drugs by hiding them inside of people and then cutting them open and taking the drugs out when they reached their destination.

 

[Michael Legault]

I thought they'd mention all the torture in that rating too. Didn't Miller waterboard someone in the trailer?

Perhaps it's all in the main game (The Phantom Pain) and not Ground Zeroes.

Is there an MGS game that doesn't have a torture scene? Hmm... I know 1 2 and 3 do... And don't they kill Meryl if you give in to said torture im MGS1? The only one I can't remember having torture is MGS4 (not counting MG1 and 2 for NES/MSX)but I haven't played MGS4 in a while. But yeah, torture is a-ok!

Side note, for all the controversy MGS is one of the very few action games that actually encourages non lethal play throughs...