Far Cry Primal's ESRB rating promises torture, mutilation, and sex

Far Cry Primal has the potential to be legitimately interesting. It's “definitely a Far Cry game,” as we declared in our hands-on earlier this month, but it's set in the Mesolithic era, so you'll be playing as a primitive human hunter—a caveman, basically—armed with rocks, clubs, bows, and a pseudo-magical ability to tame and command animals. It also means that your motivations for killing will be different than in previous games in the series. As Creative Director Jean-Cristophe Guyot said in a recent developer's blog, “It's not war, but survival.”

“One cutscene depicts a character being held in a fire while screaming; another depicts Takkar tapping a hole in another character's skull as the man screams. Some scenes depict corpses in various states of mutilation: heads and torsos on spikes; ears cut off and kept as trophies; headless bodies lying in pools of blood. Certain scenes or camera angles can depict male genitalia under garments or in shadows; some female characters are depicted topless. A handful of scenes depict characters engaged in sexual activity while clothed; grunts and short moans can be heard, though no explicit details are seen.”

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.