It's easy to forget, especially when you're an adult who can buy anything, but every video game goes through the ESRB rating process, and each game's rating makes it intended for a specific audience. For example, Final Fantasy 16 pursued an M-rating with respect to exploring mature themes.
When we took a look at Reddit, one brave user wanted to know – What was (was) the first M-rated video game you played?
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Success is not guaranteed.
The answers are a trip down memory lane, with gamers young and old sharing the first time their parents let them transition past E and T-rated games to the extra-exciting M-rated side of things.
Do you remember the first M-rated game you played?
“Halo 1,” wrote the top commenter on the post, referring to Halo: Combat Evolved, which will be 25 years old in 2026 and getting a remake in the form of Halo: Campaign Evolved.
“My mom wouldn't let me play M-rated games until I was 13, and before that I always had to play them at a friend's house down the street,” the commenter wrote. “Halo: Combat Evolved was my first too. Good times.”
Of course, no M-rated games thread would be complete without at least one Grand Theft Auto reference, and either Vice City or San Andreas were popular choices among commenters.
“I've always found it funny how San Andreas was everyone's child's game when it was rated M,” one commenter wrote.
Others cited Conker's Bad Fur Day because how else would unsuspecting parents know that the same Rare that made Banjo was also behind it?
“Late night running Blockbuster with my dad, I wanted a game with an orange squirrel on the cover and the rest is history,” the player wrote. “Life has been different since then.”
We also can't forget Mortal Kombat, any version really.
“I accidentally rented it when I was like 7 or 8 because it looked like a normal fighting game (how I could do that, I don't know) but my mom was (upset) when she realized,” wrote one happy player in response.
In perhaps the most recent example of a parent letting their child play an M-rated game, someone said they might have gotten the Elden Ring this year.
“Enjoy your trip, boy,” someone wrote.
Personally, like many kids, I was somehow allowed to play Mortal Kombat in all its gory glory, but my parents drew the line at Grand Theft Auto. I didn't get around to playing GTA until 2012 (!) when GTA IV came bundled with Max Payne 3 at Target, for some epic reason. The first M rated game I bought for myself was Advanced Warfare. Yeah, I know. What a choice.
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