It's easy to forget, especially when you're an adult who can buy anything, but every video game goes through a rating process by the ESRB, and each game's rating makes it intended for a specific audience. For example, Final Fantasy 16 pursued an M-rating with a focus on exploring mature themes.
Taking to Reddit, an intrepid user wanted to know — what (was) the first video game you played with an M rating?
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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 go from E-rated and T-rated games to the more exciting M-rated sides.
Can you remember the first M-rated game you played?
“Halo 1,” the post's top commenter wrote, referring to Halo: Combat Evolved, which turns 25 in 2026 and will get a remake as Halo: Campaign Evolved.
“My mom wouldn't let me play rated M games until I was 13 and before that I always had to play them at a friend's house down the street,” one commenter wrote. “Halo: Combat Evolved was my first too. Good times.”
Of course, no thread on M-rated games would be complete without a reference to Grand Theft Auto, and Vice City or San Andreas were popular choices among commenters.
“I always found it funny how San Andreas was everyone's childhood game when it was rated M,” one commenter wrote.
Others cited Conker's Bad Fur Day, because how would an unsuspecting parent know otherwise that the same rare banjo maker was behind it?
“Late night Blockbuster ran with my dad, I wanted a game with an orange squirrel on the cover, and the rest is history,” one gamer wrote. “Life has been different ever since.”
We also can't forget Mortal Kombat, any version really.
“I accidentally rented it when I was 7 or 8 because it looked like a regular fighting game (I don't know) but my mom was (opprist) when she realized it,” one lucky gamer wrote in response.
In the most recent example of a parent letting their child play an M-rated game, someone said they were able to get an Alden ring this year.
“Enjoy your journey baby,” someone wrote.
Personally, I, like most kids, was somehow allowed to play Mortal Kombat in all its glory, but my parents drew the line at Grand Theft Auto. I didn't get to play GTA until 2012 (!) when GTA IV was bundled into Max Payne 3, for some epic reason. The first M-rated game I bought for myself was Advanced Warfare. Yes, I know. What a choice.
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