From full frontal nudity of clothing-optional hula hoopers to surprise genital shots of dead civilians, it turns out there’s quite a bit of nudity in this game, which is now putting players at odds with their console manufacturers.
Backyard party time!
You know those EULAs you skip whenever you setup a new PS4 or Xbox One? They include clauses about not sharing sexually explicit material through your account.
That’s particularly relevant in this situation, as it means if you take a screenshot on your console and share it (as Sony and Microsoft want you to do), you can get your account banned from online activity.
This exact scenario happened with one Watch Dogs 2 player at the game’s launch, with it being widely reported a player had all PSN online activity suspended for sharing the image below (you can see the non-censored version here).
Well hello there!
After the situation came to light, Ubisoft vowed to remove that particular texture in an upcoming patch, presumably to prevent more players from being banned over sharing screenshots. Semi-serious question: considering this is Ubisoft, shouldn’t the exposed genitalia have been a paid DLC pack?
All jokes aside, the vagina shot in particular is sort of odd, especially considering you’d typically only see it if someone had been blown up or violently knocked over.
Other than female genitals, there’s plenty bare chests to be found if you wander the city enough. There’s another interesting angle to this whole debacle: you can see fully exposed male genitalia in other areas of the game as men walk around naked, and those textures are apparently NOT being patched out.
This appears to be another casualty in the ongoing war between the freedom of PC and restrictions of console, where for instance Skyrim’s mod community is basically built on nude textures, while none of that is allowed with Xbox One mods.
The situation brings up a whole host of questions of why nudity is singled out so frequently as an offensive (and bannable) offense on consoles. After all, the game is M-rated, so why should a developer have to remove nudity when, for instance, film directors aren’t required to remove frontal shots of genitals from raunchy R-rated comedies?
So what do you think: should players be punished for sharing screenshots of games on consoles, and do you support Ubisoft backing down by removing Watch Dogs 2 nude genital textures? Sound off in the comments below!
