The Batman: Arkham series is well known for its comic book aesthetic, which falls somewhere between the cartoony action of Batman: The Animated Series and the gothic horror of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, but while the previous games in the series managed to somehow keep the bone-breaking violence to a Teen rating, the newest title, Batman: Arkham Knight, has been given a Mature rating by the ESRB.

But surprisingly, Arkham series developer Rocksteady Studios is perfectly fine with that rating.

“From our point of view, we never wrote it or made it with a rating in mind,” game director Sefton Hill told IGN. “We never did that in the previous two games… We just felt that this is the story that we really wanted to tell. In terms of creating the story, with such strong characters, sometimes they lead you in interesting directions. They lead you because you know who they are and you build the world around that.”

But Hill realizes that the M rating will mean some younger players may not be able to play the game for some time.

“I’m not blind to the fact that [the M rating] does mean some fans will miss out,” he told IGN. “I don’t want to be oblivious to that fact. It would have been wrong to water down the game and deliver a story we didn’t believe in to keep the game ‘mass market’ or enable it for more people. We feel that’s the wrong way to go about it. We said we love the story and we don’t want to jepoardize that.”

Spoiler alert: Batman: Arkham City spoiler below

Batman: Arkham Knight takes place one year after the events of Batman: Arkham City, with Batman coming to terms with the death of his arch-nemesis, Joker. Joker’s death has united Batman’s rogues gallery of villains against him, and Batman will face a city full of criminals as he unravels the mystery of a new villain appearing on the stage, the eponymous Arkham Knight.

End spoiler

Batman: Arkham Knight is set to release on June 2 later this year and will be available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Image credit: Rocksteady Studios (c)