Modern Warfare 3 has been given an age-rating by ESRB, the body who decide how old someone should be to buy and play a video game in North America. MW3 has been rated M (for mature), which means they don't recommend the game for anyone younger than 17. And their explanation for why reveals a lot about MW3's tone.
Modern Warfare 3 was obviously always going to be rated M / 17+, because every Call of Duty game is rated M, if nothing else for the violence. However, in MW3 they gave a quite detailed explanation to justify their rating, and it already reveals a lot about the direction this game and CoD more generally is headed in.
Modern Warfare 3 Rating Released By ESRB, More Mature Than Usual?
In ESRB's newly-released description of MW3, they reveal a number of events that will occur in campaign missions which include (spoiler alert):
Terrorists taking over an airplane [and] terrorists (dressed as police officers and paramedics) shooting/killing fleeing civilians inside a stadium concourse.
We might not be active participants in these events, but we are getting a return to No-Russian-levels of terrorism in Call of Duty.
And yet, at the same time, the tone of the cosmetics they'll be selling are more along these lines:
The game includes a finishing move in which marijuana smoke from a bong can be forced into an opponent's face.
But then, Call of Duty never claimed to be a subtle franchise.
Do you think CoD goes too far with its depiction of terrorism, or would you rather it leaned more heavily into realistic themes and dispense with the weed skins? Maybe you think both can co-exist just fine?