Nudity and sex have always been weird stigmas when it comes to video games. There are countless games which let you maim, dismember and obliterate waves of faceless enemies (and even innocent good guys) in over-the-top or realistic gory fashion, but far fewer games dare to feature even the briefest hints of a nipple or, god forbid, genetalia. It’s rather ironic seeing as video games have been sexualising female characters for years, but the industry has only really recently managed to shake away the misconception that games are mostly enjoyed by children. Nevertheless, there are a few games which have been brave enough to depict pixellated nudity and sex over the years. Some games manage to do it in a mature and realistic way while others take a slightly different approach.
10. Custer’s Revenge – Atari 2600 (1982)
Even when video games were nothing more than a bunch of splodgy, barely identifiable pixels, developers attempted to make the most of the limited resources available to them. In Custer’s Revenge, players take control of the titular general who is sporting nothing more than a cowboy hat, bandana, boots and a huge erection. Players have to dodge falling arrows so they can get to a naked Native American women tied to a pole on the other side of the screen. When they do, Custer thrusts the woman from behind. The game’s developers Mystique had previously released other pornographic, adult-only games for the Atari like Bachelor Party and Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em, but they didn’t generate the same level of controversy as the release of Custer’s Revenge did. Unsurprisingly, the game attracted huge backlash from Native American groups, women’s rights activists and anyone with a taste of common decency who didn’t want to play a game which had such a rapey, racist and offensive objective.
9. Tomb Raider – PC/Sega Saturn/PlayStation (1996)
Any gamer whose ‘formative years’ coincided with the release of the original Tomb Raider games will remember paying very close attention to the rumours about a legendary cheat code which stripped Lara Croft of her clothes. Sadly it just wasn’t true and there was no way of seeing Lara’s ample assets without the help of an external patch. Technically, it’s inclusion on this list is cheating a bit because there are plenty of nudity patches which have made by the dedicated, perverted modder community, but none have generated as much interest as the ‘Nude Raider’. In fact, publisher Eidos Interactive publicly denounced the mod in an effort to protect Lara’s image because they didn’t want young fans from “stumbling across [nude] pictures” of the character. Yeah right.
8. GTA IV: the Lost & The Damned – Xbox 360/PS3/PC (2010)
The GTA series has always courted controversy for its violence and anarchistic attitude, but Rockstar went one step further by including full frontal male nudity in GTA IV’s The Lost & The Damned DLC. In one of the game’s cutscenes, protagonist Johnny has a conversation with the character Congressman Stubbs as he walks around the room nude having just received a massage. The camera stays above Stubb’s waist for the duration of 3 minute cutscene until the very end when Stubb’s turns around and lets his chubber hang loose. It’s a silly visual gag, but developer Rockstar is clearly poking fun at the hypocrisy of video game fans when it comes to male nudity.
7. Leisure Suit Larry Series – PC (1987 – )
The hapless adventures of Larry Laffer from Leisure Suit Larry became one of the most enduring series in the adult-themed video game market. The series got smuttier and smuttier as it went on (after all, it started out as an 8-bit text adventure game), but Leisure Suit Larry was always more about raunchy raciness and double entendres than it was explicit nudity. In fact, in the first game Larry’s ‘conquest is covered completely by a huge ‘censored’ graphic. Nevertheless, few video games are based around the adventures of a middle aged man trying desperately to lose his virginity, so for that Leisure Suit Larry deserves its place in adult video game history.
6. BMX XXX – Xbox/GameCube/PlayStation 2 (2002)
The success of Tony Hawks Pro Skater brought with it other extreme sport, cash-in games, but none were so desperate as BMX XXX. Attempting to muster up more interest in what eventually turned out to be a poor game (popular rumour goes that the nudity was added when the developers realised that the game they were working on wasn’t going to turn out very well), BMX XXX featured nudity, foul language and not much else. Bafflingly, the Playstation 2 version of the game was actually censored, so there really wasn’t any point in playing it whatsoever.
5. The Guy Game – PlayStation 2/Xbox/PC (2004)
The Guy Game was an ‘adult game show’ video game which combined the two things all guys want in life; trivia and nudity. The Guy Game rewarded correct answers with video footage of young women flashing their breasts at Spring Break, but the question and answer parts of the game took way too long for the payoff of a brief glimpse of nudity. The game was panned for being both a poor trivia game and a pretty tame adult-themed game, but it gained considerable controversy when it was revealed that one of the topless girls featured was only 17 years old at the time of filming. A lawsuit followed and The Guy Game was quickly yanked from shelves.
4. Rust – PC (2013)
Although it’s still in Alpha stage, indie survival game Rust has already been a huge commercial success. Players literally start from scratch and have to gather and craft resources to survive in the inventive first person multiplayer game. This means that players also start with no clothing. There’s really nothing like joining a server with other players running around like naked cavemen scavenging for rocks and sticks as they desperately try to build shelter and weapons. It can be off-putting at first, but you’ll soon be wondering why other apocalyptic games don’t have this type of casual nudity, too.
3. Voyeur – Philips CD-i (1993)
During the period where video game developers were slowly progressing toward more realistic and immersive graphics, ‘interactive movies’ offered gamers a chance to recreate ‘choose your own adventure’ type games on their home consoles. Gameplay was severely limited and all gamers were really expected to do was watch long cutscenes which usually featured real actors in live footage. Released for Phillip’s short-lived CD-i console, Voyeur was a peeping Tom game which allowed players to live out the role of a private investigator. The objective of the game was to collect evidence to blackmail the wealthy Reed Hawke, a corrupt CEO who has plans to run for President. The format of the game basically involved choosing different windows of the Reed home to spy through and watching video clips of different characters arguing, backstabbing and having sex with each other. The plot players out like a melodramatic soap opera and although there is nudity and sex, it’s not particularly graphic. Still, it was the best that players could get from their video games during the mid 90s.
2. God of War 3 – PlayStation 3 (2010)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl9wRc7vCzE
God-slaying Kratos was finally given some much needed R&R in the third game of the God of War series when he met Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Sexuality. Rather than smash her head in like he does every other God, Kratos beds Aphrodite in exchange for some red orbs. The encounter turns into a quicktime event minigame and the camera focuses on Aphrodite’s handmaidens as they watch on and comment on Kratos’ performance while players bash buttons and twiddle on the controller’s joysticks.
1. Mass Effect Series – Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC (2007 -)
RPGs have gone through something of a renaissance in recent years with more and more games from the genre dealing with adult themes and content. Series like Dragon Age: Origins and The Witcher have used sex in their gameplay and story in a mature, adult way, but Mass Effect is by far the most interesting and refreshing RPG with its open, progressive attitudes toward sex and relationships. Playing as either a male or female version of the series protagonist Commander Shepard, gamers can engage in heterosexual, homosexual or even xenophilic (alien) relationships. The series is well-known for it’s open-ended, decision-based gameplay and by the third game players have a huge amount of romantic conquests to choose from and experience. Romantic cutscenes don’t always involve sex, but the games aren’t shy about showing some under the sheets action when it wants to. Commander Shepard proves to be a very open-minded individual, and he isn’t deterred if his conquests have blue skin, green scales or a huge helmet which they very rarely take off. Well, it is the future after all.
