Heads up, Parents and Caregivers. There’s a game in the creative pipeline that could soon be downloaded to a computer near you that you might want to form an opinion about. 

It goes by the name of Unrecord, a single player First Person Shooter (FPS) game that tells the story of a police officer from the perspective of his body camera, and requires a player to use detective and tactical skills to solve a complex case.

For an industry that thrives on creating ever more immersive experiences, it’s hard to single out any one game as the most realistic, but that is a tagline commonly applied to Unrecord.

On that count, this hyper-realistic virtual experience may even cross the line between being mere entertainment and potentially harmful to society: 

“I genuinely thought it was a video of real life, and it was a first-person shooter game,” said Ben Baker, a college senior and lifelong gamer, about the publicly available Unrecord trailer. 

“Yeah, that stuff definitely scares me in that it’s like jumping into the deep end without really thinking about the effects it could have on the user,” Baker added about the Go-Pro realism depicted in Unrecord, which currently ranks 10th of 2,745 for “most wish-listed upcoming games” on Steam DB.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association decision in which the affirmative ruled California merchants could not be subjected to fines for selling  M+ rated video games to consumers under the age of 17.

Yes,  that’s right, “merchants”—the opinion was issued so long ago in “tech time” that the primary subject of the decision was store owners who sold physical copies of games.

A guiding rationale for the Brown judgement was that parents already had sufficient information—a ratings system-- for influencing the gaming purchase decisions of minors in their household.

If that were ever the case, the practice of monitoring ratings grows more difficult by the day--what with the technological leaps and bounds both the creative & consumptive sides of video gaming have taken in the last 13 years.

Now, of course, most gaming purchases are done digitally & downloaded onto a given gaming device.  Consequently, the need for parents to play goalie to keep games they don’t want their kids to play has increased significantly—particularly given the ubiquity of mobile phones among pre-teens these days.

It’s worth highlighting that the computing power of kids’ current cellphones make them a wee bit more capable than their fathers’ Gameboy devices.

Even the previously quoted Gen Z Gamer Ben Baker thinks so. In fact, he shudders at the thought of being born 10 years later as a member of the all-digital Generation Alpha:

“I think I would be a really different person if I had gotten a mobile gaming device earlier than I did,” said Baker.  “If that was just always available to play whatever, it scares me to think about it.”

In case you’re not keeping track, that’s two times an experienced lifelong gamer expressed apprehension about the gaming milieu around the unreleased Unrecord.

For gamers like him, at least, it doesn’t sound like Unrecord will have the opportunity to exploit his fear response through an intriguing storyline designed to keep him hooked.

Unrecord is not rated yet, but according to the game’s own developers:

This game may contain content not appropriate for all ages or may not be appropriate for viewing at work.  Frequent Violence or Gore, General Mature Content.

An official rating will likely be issued around the game’s release some time in 2024 or 2025, but remember, it will be completely up to parents who want to ensure a game of this kind is not played by their child.

Beyond that, there are no other industry safeguards or preventive laws to assist you.

If this article has you hoping to keep ultra-violent games from being played by your child, Good Luck to you. 

We at Tame the Gamer always wish you domestic peace in gaming land.