Demiurge Studios knew Shoot Many Robots would be M-Rated, as CEO Albert reed states (speaking with Vox Games), the game uses “beer for energy, there’s some blood and there are some swears in the game”. Not to mention the inclusion of a certain character who likes to get frisky with fruit. It still came as a surprise however when they received a phone call from Ubisoft, who published the game, asking to up the swear-count.
“The phone call with Ubisoft was ‘So, we’re going to get an M-rating, could you put some more swears in the game, please? We don’t want to be on the border with the ESRB, we want to be clear. So please, more swears.’ It was the weirdest phone call in the world.”
It’s certainly an unusual request, these stories are usually about the opposite request, with many games needing to be censored in order to fit within a rating mandate. Even Shoot Many Robots suffered from this to a certain extent, with the PSN version ditching beer for energy and replacing it with the less suggestive “juice”.
Source: Vox Games/The Verge
