Rating a linear action game is a bounded problem. Rating a role-playing game with dozens of hours of branching content asks a fundamentally harder question about what the reviewer has actually seen.
The board reviews submitted material, not the finished game
American ratings are assigned from a publisher questionnaire plus footage of the most extreme content, which places the burden of disclosure on the publisher.
That works when the extreme content is identifiable. It gets harder when a scene only appears down one branch that most players never reach.
Publishers therefore maintain internal content audits during development, tracking which sequences will require disclosure long before the submission itself is prepared.
Branching multiplies what has to be catalogued
A role-playing game's darkest moment may sit behind a specific faction choice, a failed persuasion check or a late-game decision the writers themselves rarely revisit.
Nobody plays every branch, including the developers, so the catalogue is assembled from scripts and design documents rather than from playthroughs.
Content that exists in the build but was cut from every reachable path is a recurring ambiguity, and it is one reason unused assets occasionally cause trouble later.
Player-driven violence is difficult to characterize
Systemic games let players combine mechanics into outcomes no designer scripted, and the resulting scenes can be more extreme than anything intentionally authored.
Rating descriptors are written against depicted content, so a system that permits an act sits differently from a cutscene that shows it.
The practical resolution is that boards weigh what the game's own presentation emphasizes, which is judgment rather than a rule that can be checked mechanically.
Post-release content reopens the question
Expansions and major updates can introduce material beyond what the original rating covered, and a rating describes the product as submitted.
Substantial added content is generally submitted again, while smaller updates fall into a gap that publishers manage against their own guidelines.
Storefronts increasingly ask developers to re-declare content when an update changes it, which shifts some of this from a formal review to a self-assessment.
Purchases and player interaction are flagged separately
Interactive notices cover in-game purchases and interaction with other players, and both are common in role-playing games with online components.
Those notices are not about depicted content at all, so a modest game can carry them while a violent single-player title does not.
For an American parent making a decision, the interactive line frequently matters more than the content descriptors, because it describes ongoing spending exposure rather than a scene.