So the same as how sex is handled in every Bethesda game…

such a shame it wasnt a sex minigame with switching positions and stuff like that one guy asked the cyberpunk devs

The XP buff being better than normal Well Rested is still an improvement, but honestly Bethesda games should’ve been doing that since New Vegas.

Am I supposed to be jacking off for maximum immersion?

What? When my character die am I supposed to kill myself or else it takes out the immersion? How’s sex different from all the other stuff your character does?

…Wait, are you setting people on fire for maximum immersion?

I feel like you’re placing a higher standard on one action vs another. I can understand if it makes you uncomfortable because of sex itself, but the immersion reason seems like it doesn’t work by itself when you consider other actions you’re doing in the game…

That is because our mainstream culture is one that discourages people talking about sex.

And is the reason for all the sex negative discourses that people take for granted.

We need to stop making sex a taboo. More discussion/ normalisation of the topic will be good for humanity, given that it is an essential part of us.

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I’m not a huge fan of the recent trend of guns and firing in mainstream video games. Besides the janky awkwardness of polygons, there’s something off-putting to me about my character engaging in deadly combat. Am I supposed to be pretending that it’s me as I watch the action happening? When I play a game (esp. an RPG) I can get really immersed in the experience and feel like the mouse/controller is an extension of my hand, shooting fireballs and whatnot. So is it also supposed to be an extension of my weapon when my character starts killing? Am I supposed to be fully engaged for maximum immersion?

In movies, it’s different because when a character in a movie engages in deadly combat, the audience understands that they’re watching someone else do it. I’ve never seen a movie where I’m supposed to pretend like I’m the main character and I’m the one doing the killing. (Hardcore Henry notwithstanding)

I have nothing against action-packed games or games with mature content as their own thing, but encountering it in a regular game always throws me out of the immersion. Coming from a mainstream studio, it also just feels like a desperate attempt to appeal to a certain audience more than anything else, even if it’s nothing more than a short murder.

None of the sex stuff in current games is forced, it’s all optional. For some games you need to actively seek it out. So just don’t choose to engage with the sex stuff. Sounds like an extra layer of immersion to me.

“recent trend” as in like when mass effect did it 16 years ago?

I sincerely don’t care either way.

I’d consider it a slight positive on a broader cultural level, though. The fact that big market games don’t have to be heavily censored to exist any more feels like a positive even if I don’t find the sex particularly gratifying. (And no, I don’t care which of 3 identical looking dicks my character has, BG3 or cyberpunk). I do think, that given how many people find the romance part of the roleplaying enjoyable (and have way before the modern trend of adding explicit elements to them), that having sex is kind of an inevitable part of that, though.

It may be partly connected with the fact that an R rated movie can have sex in it, but video game sex has been mostly a taboo subject (GTA as an early example), even for an R rated game. So it may be an example of the movement towards sex being included in games as it is in movies. Agreed about the immersion, but depends on how you “play” your character. Depending on the game, you can avoid the interactions you don’t feel fit with your character, but not every game.

I agree, but at the same time there’s still a bunch of games without that. Nintendo, especially, continues to offer titles that don’t have sex emphasized. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were both great games, with good story (if a little cutesy, but it’s aimed at being family friendly), not even really any allusion to sex.

Also, with games like Baldurs Gate 3, they’re really just following in the footsteps of the original games. BG/BG2 and Fallout didn’t necessarily have companions you could romance, but they did have at least one or two options to have sex/marry someone. They were less detailed, and less descriptive, but it is part of the evolution of traditional Western RPGs, which traditionally were aimed at adults and didn’t shy away from including sex.

As far as Starfield goes, it’s a similar story, Bethesda games have long had those options, it’s not super new, although it’s a lot more prevalent now.

Still, I think there’s far more games without sex than there are with sex. Still a little weird though, I’m not horny enough to really enjoy it, I guess?

I agree 100%. I cant imagine myself playing and my son comes and asks me what I’m playing and… Just no. It has to be very, very optional if ok. But even then it just feels unnecessary to me.

I find sex scenes awkward to enjoy, I kinda like the fade to black where it’s implied but not delved into. That said so many novels that are aimed at a similar audience with sci Fi and fantasy have always had sex scenes (Necromancer, Hyperion, Expanse all have sex in them) When we were playing text based games back in the 80s we wanted a cinematic experience. What’s the result? Games with sex in them. A new Leisure Suit Larry game is probably about due now that I think of it heh. I just click through and continue on.

The whole article was for that picture.

I don’t think the world is ready for Bethesda Seinfeld RPG. But I am.