A buffet of new screenshots were recently released for Grand Theft Auto V. They were all visually stunning, showing the game's various environements, vehicles, weapons, mission details, looks at the characters, and various activities. But one shot in particular grabbed my attention. Yes, the one above.
Strip clubs have been featured as interactive locations in four GTA games to date, and from the recent screenshots, it looks like they'll be returning in Grand Theft Auto V. However, despite a whole lot of suggestive gyrating, the most outlandish thing you could do was to turn Niko into the meat of a stripper sandwich. The clubs never actually featured any actual stripping, as there was always something covering up the ladies' naughty bits. But with this latest screenshot, and the risk of sounding lewd, I can't help but wonder if they'll be changing their policy about nipple no-no's.
After all, Rockstar's shown no qualms about showing a little skin before, with L.A. Noire, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3, just enough to leep the game's from snagging an AO rating, a virtual kiss of death for sales, as a great many retailers refuse to stock such games. But for a game franchise that's dealt with a fairly diverse range of questionable subjects: prostitution, cannibalism, torture, prostitution, drugs, strippers, prostitution, pornography, human trafficking, crime, and arguably what helped the franchise acheive such notoriety, prostitution, the company's been awfully shy about showing a couple of mammary glands. They even offered up a true rarity in video games, an honest to god penis in GTA IV's Lost and the Damned DLC.
Violence has long been a staple of video games, and has grown more and more brazen with each new generation. Nudity and depictions of sex on the other hand have always been considered a bit more taboo, and harder (pun not intended) to come by, particularly in the American market. Compare this to Japan, where the gaming culture isn't nearly as timid about the subject, having a whole range of games devoted to the risqué. But like violence, it too has been around for as far back as the Atari, but it managed to sneak in under the radar on many occasions.
The amount of nudity in games seems to have escalated in recent years: the God of War series, Far Cry 3, Duke Nukem Forever, Splatterhouse, Heavy Rain, The Witcher, Dante's Inferno, there are boobs...boobs everywhere... Not that I'm complaining mind you, merely illustrating a point. Given that nudity is becoming increasingly more common, can we expect the next GTA to follow (birthday) suit? Hard to say.
We've looked to the early ESRB rating releases to provide some spoileriffic info in the past, like with Resident Evil 6, Deadpool, and more recently, the potential for the first two GTA titles to be available via the PlayStation Network. But with a rating still pending, the organization has yet to provide any such information for the next GTA.
