For Star Wars 1313, mature rating means ‘for adults, not pyschopaths’

In a day and age when video games are being blamed for increase violence among youths, it was somewhat startling to see Star Wars 1313 labeled as "mature".

If you haven't yet heard of it, Star Wars 1313 is a new title from LucasArts that offers a darker, more mature look at the story of a lethal bounty hunter who is set out to uncover the truth surrounding a criminal conspiracy. Very little is known about the game, except for the fact that it's a third-person cinematic action-adventure game that looks so good it has drawn speculation that it will be released for next-gen consoles.

While many developers would take that sort of speculation as a compliment, Star Wars 1313 creative director, Dominic Robilliard, feels the game's visual fidelity opens it up to criticisms that LucasArts and Star Wars 1313 are glorifying violence.

"When you can render characters that look like the ones in our game – and other games – you get to this realism level where you really don't want to encourage that kind of thing," he explained to OXM. "Seeing that kind of reaction from gamers… It may well be human nature, but you don't want to put content out there that pushes those buttons."

While the Star Wars 1313 gameplay trailer and E3 debut was extremely action packed, it paled in comparison to some of the other "mature' games that were shown off at E3. Sure there was ships exploding and men being shot with lasers, but in comparison to what we saw, for instance, with what Lara Croft goes through in the new Tomb Raider, Star Wars 1313 is relatively mild in terms of ultra-violence.

"We had a lot of questions from people saying: mature Star Wars?" Robilliard continued. "Does that mean we're going to see blood and guts all over the place? That's not it at all – it's not what we're shooting for. I don't think that would ever fit in Star Wars, really."

"It's for adults, not for psychopaths," VFX supervisor Kim Libreri summed up.

Action games are always going to have action, but I think it is how that action is portrayed and conveyed by the audience that is really what makes the difference. Some would say Star Wars 1313 was just as action-packed, if not more, as Tomb Raider. But why did Tomb Raider get scrutinized? Because of the cringe-worthy moments you saw Lara suffer through.

But regardless of emotions and what not, I think most of us gamers will agree on one thing: video games are not the cause of violence.