Hi-Fi Rush has received a rating for multiple platforms, perhaps including some you didn’t even expect.
As shared on reddit by user Turbostrider27, Australia’s classification board has listed a new rating for the title.
Now, as you can see on the Australian ratings board’s website, the title falls under the codename Project 2022A. However, other details on the rating indicate that this rating is for Hi-Fi Rush. Among those is listing Zenimax Media and Shinji Mikami, and more importantly, a name change listed on February 1 2023, to make it the title we know.
While the game may appear wholesome to adult gamers, Australia has rated it M, for science fiction violence. It also notes a milder impact for its themes and language, and very mild impacts for what it categorizes as drug use and sex. There is no rated nudity. All of this point to a title that can be marketed to teen gamers and older.
Now, the listing has been updated to show that the title has been rated again, for PC, Playstation 4 (PS4), Nintendo Switch, Online/mobile, Xbox One, and Arcade.
Yesterday, we reported on the rumor that Hi-Fi Rush could be coming to the Nintendo Switch. That raised quite an uproar, as well as raising questions if the game could also come to PlayStation.
But what we have now is entirely something else. We didn’t know that the title could run on Xbox One, and now it seems Microsoft and Tango are belatedly backporting the title. Furthermore, they are also hinting at bringing the game to mobile, and even to arcades?
For what it’s worth, while the kid friendly arcade may not be a huge market in the US, there is a growing cult following for barcades for adults. These are arcades where the gamers can drink while playing their games. So there is definitely a market for Hi-Fi Rush for arcades in the US, aside from Japan and the rest of the world. But what would an arcade version of Hi-Fi Rush even look like?
The listing including mobile at least suggests that Microsoft is pursuing the strategy they hinted at in the middle of the Activision deal regulation. Those of us who don’t have an Xbox Series X|S and didn’t play the game already on PC either may have the option to just play it on Xbox’s upcoming third party mobile store.
Perhaps some of these are only speculatory for Microsoft; to get a rating before they have figured out how they would bring the game to some of these platforms. That certainly indicates that Microsoft has decided this is one of those games which they need to build a following with not just all gamers, but everyone. Don’t be surprised if an animated series is planned too.
