The age rating of Apex Legends concerns players. Why is it 18 and not 16? The USK cites an important reason for this age recommendation. The age recommendations from other organizations are significantly lower.
This question is posed by many players: Apex Legends is currently trending and many players are jumping on board and riding along into the new Battle Royale. However, not everyone is allowed to participate.
Because Apex Legends received a tough USK-18 rating. This makes players wonder what it could be due to. Visually, the game doesn’t seem that brutal. The comic-style graphics appear rather relieving.
One single feature causes the 18 rating: Gamestar inquired with the USK why Apex Legends is rated 18 years in Germany. It turned out that a single feature was responsible for this. Because it is simply too brutal.
The finishing moves are brutal: Finishing moves are special attacks that are executed on opponents who are already on the ground. They could theoretically still move. If you run over to them and press a hotkey for the finisher, you kill the opponent. Here’s how a finisher works in Apex Legends:
This is what the USK says about the 18 rating of Apex Legends
The USK’s statement explains that the finishing moves in Apex Legends are brutal and mocking. Therefore, they could not give a rating of 16.
For a rating of 16 years, the many distanced fantasy elements, the partially unrealistic “finishing moves”, and the darkly humorous elements spoke.
However, other finishers are simply too brutal and realistic:
On the other hand, there are also “finishing moves” in the game that appear realistic and brutal. For example, human-shaped characters can be kicked in the face, stabbed in the side with a knife, or jumped on from behind.
In some animations, after [the finishers], it can be seen how the winning character strikes a victory pose that mocks the loser, and strikes or kicks at the camera.
Through these effective representations of brutal killings as particularly darkly humorous “finishing moves,” they are humorously “celebrated” and thus trivialized in their consequences, so that desensitizing effects and social-ethical disorientation could not be ruled out even for older adolescents.
The finishing moves of Apex Legends: Which moves are now considered too brutal is unclear. There seem to be a few that are less harsh, but others could not be deemed appropriate for players under 18.
This is how the age rating of Apex Legends affects the PS4.
In the following video, you can watch all the finishing moves of all legends of Apex Legends and judge for yourself which of them might be too harsh.
This is the age recommendation for Apex Legends in other countries:
The PEGI (Pan European Gaming Information) has given Apex Legends an age recommendation of 16. It states that the finishers are an example of “realistic violence.” They look “powerful” but were not classified as “strong violence.”.
The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) gives a recommendation of “T” for Teens. This corresponds to an age recommendation of 13. Here too, the finishers are addressed, which are often shown in close-ups and from the perspective of the victims.
