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I wasn't sure if there were still restrictions on discussing M-Rated games, but my question is actually about the rating, so hopefully this will not be a problem. Moderators can delete this if necessary.

I had a couple questions for those who have played Skyrim. It was just released on the Nintendo Switch, and my son is interested in trying it since he has already mastered Breath of the Wild. We do not currently have any M-Rated games, so I was wondering :

1. Is there a way to play through the game without encountering most of the "mature content?" I have read about "Dark Brotherhood" quests, for instance. Can these be avoided completely?

2. Is there a toggle control in the settings that can reduce/eliminate blood? Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance had this feature years ago, so I was hoping other games used it.

I would appreciate any thoughts about whether it is possible to play Skyrim as a T-Rated game by avoiding M-Rated thematic objectives. You can PM me instead of posting here as necessary.

Pm sent.

As someone who has played Skye in for over 100+ hours on both PC and Xbox, I hope I can help you out some .

***MINOR SPOILERS BELOW***

1) For content purposes, the rating is whatever you make it.  For the Dark Brotherhood, you actually have a chance to destroy them instead of joining them.  For the thieves guild, though they do not encourage killing, you can bypass almost all of them as well (you do have to do the first quest as part of the main story but even if you fail it, they still let you in).  Something else you might want to watch out for is in the dwemer town (havent played it in a while so i forget the name but its the down that looks like a dwarven town), there is a priest outside a house that mentions his ordee and that he was sent to clear out the evil in the house.  Do not do it as it makes you a servant of an evil deadra and kill a monk slowly.  Another one to avoid is the cannibal side quest (don't remember where it is).  With the expansion, you have a choice to become a vampire or fight them.  The story is mainly the same but the ending is different and if you pick the hunters (dawnguard), you can play it correctly to have your companion (who is a vampire) become healed of her vampireness.  The rest of the quests are standard ones morally so you just need to avoid the few (and if you accidently pick one of them up, you can just leave it incomplete in your mission log).

2) Though there is no "turn blood off" option, for the most part, the blood is just painted on the sword/person and doesn't really gush out.  There are a couple of exceptions, though.  One big one is that there is a perk that gives you a chance to decapitate your opponent.  That can be graphic as you see it in FPS mode (I prefer FPS mode than third person view) and some blood does squirt out of the vote for a second.  Another thing is that if you do the champion story line, you become a werewolf.  As one, you can choose to consume a body to increase health and prolong your form (it's on a timer).  I usually don't and at the end of the story line, you can become cured of it (though I usually keep it as the bonus of not worrying about poisons and diseases out ways the downside of no rest bonus for me (even though I never turn into one)).  Also, on that story line, you do have to collect the heads of some witches to get the cure so when you check your inventory, you do see the severed head.  The best way to avoid blood is to actually become a wizard as the magic does not cause blood to appear.

Hope that helps.

Thank you Hobbit and Lampy for your input. I'm glad that I can avoid TDB, but what about the other "warnings" that come with the M-Rating? They specifically mention sexual themes and alcohol use. Are these also avoidable?

YMT for better or worse the game is a role playing game. Just about everything (except the violence) can be avoided by choice.

The violence is... well violent haha but it's not over the top gore like the Fallout series or some other M rated games. It's your normal run of the mil fantasy violence.

I'm reviving this thread to add one more question. What are your thoughts about the difference between the console versions? For instance, I could get the PS3 "Legendary Edition" or the PS4 "Special Edition." The Switch version apparently matches the PS4 SE.

How much of a downgrade would the PS3 version be? The difference in price is part of my dilemma - $50 for Switch, $20 for PS4, and $10 for PS3.

I only own special edition on the PC, but from what i have read, the graphics aren't necessary better, just different, so that's really just personal preference. they fixed some old bugs, but there are some newer bugs that are only on SE, although they are very minor and easy to fix if needed, and I've also read it's a bit harder on on your computer than the original skyrim. If you want a modded game, SE is the way to go on Console, but original is better on pc. Personally, i would go for SE on the console, but i would probably do the original on the PC.

The ps4 should be able to handle it. It's far more advanced than the ps3 and SE is not that much more graphics intensive, and worse case, just turn down the graphics a few notches. 

Bethesda games do have this nasty habit of getting weird crashes later in the game due to the 3rd gen consoles (XB360 and PS3) not really being able to handle all the memory needed to handle the late game save files.

Yeah, have to be careful of the inventory glitch! Switching between inventory sections, entering doors, etc becomes almost unplayably slow. Fact is you probably have like 10k, 0 weight keys that you have to drop from your inventory haha. Ruined the game for me until someone helped me fixed it.