I was going to write a post about how recently-released visual novel Our World Is Ended would be much better if the engaging science fiction story wasn’t interrupted by characters talking about boobs. Then middle school programming whiz Tatiana showed up and started accusing the college-aged main character of trying to steal her panties.
(Images in this post are safe for work, but contain racy text and descriptions of sexual situations. If you don’t want to see those, run.)
I was having a relatively good time playing Our World Is Ended, released earlier this month by PQube for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. The artwork is stunning. The plot involves the members of a small game development studio called Judgement 7 getting trapped in a virtual world between fiction and reality where their video game creations come to life.
It sounds like exactly my sort of game. It opens with the player character, Reiji, testing out Judgement 7’s virtual reality program on the streets of Tokyo. Everything is going well when the program glitches, giving Reiji a glimpse of a shocking, post-apocalyptic scene.
I was instantly drawn into this twisted sci-fi tale. I almost didn’t mind that every couple of minutes the game dropped everything to focus on, describe or discuss boobs. Main character Reiji is a college student, and his mind tends to wander. At least he’s creative.
We’re slowly introduced to the rest of the members of J7. There’s Owari, AKA “The Perverted Programmer”, whose description should have been my first inkling of how the game was going to go. He’s the boss of the studio. Then there’s the planner, a large, bombastic gentleman who calls himself Iruka No. 2. He is silly and fun, with the ability to somehow make his sunglasses flash in true anime hero fashion. Along with Reiji, that’s it for the team’s male contingent.
Then we have Yuno, the assistant with the large, pillowy breasts, and graphic artist Natsumi, who is the kind of girl whose breasts look small in clothes but are actually big. Yuno’s sister, Asano, does sound design for the team and has very small breasts.
How do I know all this? Because the game is constantly bombarding me with boob comments, concerns and facts. Reiji thinks about his teammates’ breasts a lot. Whether everyone is just sitting around a meeting room table or being chased by a bloodthirsty beast through the nighttime streets, Reiji is ready with boob thoughts.
Breasts are also discussed by the entire J7 team on a regular basis. The two senior male members of the group constantly debase Asano for her small chest, calling her “unfortunate” and “saddening.” Here’s this super cute anime girl with an outstanding sense of style, and she’s constantly being made feel inferior because of her measurements. No wonder she’s always punching and threatening her co-workers.
Later in the game, when the group finds themselves trapped between the real world and the game world, a non-player character named Erorie from one of their older games shows up.
Everything pretty much goes downhill from there.
“Borderline offensive” is a good way to describe how I imagine most players would have described the game to this point. I was taking it in stride, genuinely curious as to what was going on, how the worlds got twisted together and how the team was going to resolve the situation. I can handle boobs, non-penetrating tentacle monsters and Erorie being programmed to drop slimy white food on her chest.
I could not handle Tatiana.
Appearing early in the game as an avatar on a computer screen, it wasn’t until I was a few hours into the game that I got to meet Tatiana in person. Here is her description, from a press release issued around Our World Is Ended’s release:
Tatiana was born in Russia but she has lived in Japan since her childhood. She usually works as a programmer at research institutes while attending junior high school in Hokkaido. She is a super genius also known as “Russian’s Hidden Treasure” but apart from her programming skills, she is inferior to most of the children of her age. Her basic social and living skills are more around the lower elementary school or kindergarten level.
So she is a very young genius with poorly-developed social skills. Here’s a screenshot of Reiji and Tatiana’s first in-person meeting.
We’ve got a child sprawled on the ground. To the left is a case with children’s underwear and a stuffed bunny spilling out. There’s some more underwear scattered about. Off to her right is a lollipop. To top it off, she’s shouting about her panties.
What. The. Fuck.
It’s bad enough that nothing on the game’s official website suggests any sort of overly sexual content. It’s at least rated M for mature by the ESRB, whose description goes into great detail about what’s going on.
This is a visual novel in which players assume the role of Reiji Gozen, a member of a game developer group creating augmented reality programs in Tokyo. As players progress through the narrative, they make action and dialogue choices that can lead to still-image sequences depicting violence and blood: characters shot by pistols; blood splatter on walls, tables, and around victims’ bodies. The game contains some sexual material: female characters wearing skimpy outfits (e.g., deep cleavage), often viewed via close-up camera angles; still-images of moaning characters, covered in slime and restrained by tentacles; sexual references in the dialogue (e.g., “Your breasts are soo big” ;“I can feel her breasts 30% better than before, too”; “I’m so w*t that I might go over the edge”; “I don’t wanna die for your damn porn even if it kills me.”). The words “f**k,” “sh*t,” and “a*shole” appear in the game.
But nothing prepared me for the Tatiana scenes. She talks about her breasts. She calls people, the player character included, perverts, suggesting they are after her underwear. At one point her father shows up as Reiji is putting Tatiana down for a nap and accuses him of molesting her.
I reached out to Nintendo and Sony about Our World Is Ended, passing along a description and several screenshots of Tatiana-related situations, but neither company got back to me in time for publication. UK-based publisher PQube sent a statement to Kotaku earlier today, saying the game is already under review.
As always, our mission at PQube is to bring games from Asia to the west, taking care to ensure that they align with the original as closely as possible.
However, we also have a very strong bond with our community and fans and so are always mindful of paying close attention to, and implementing, any feedback.
Since release we took on board a lot of feedback and have already been reviewing Our World Is Ended to help make improvements to ensure it is as enjoyable as possible to our wider community.
Careful trimming could make Our World Is Ended less offensive. It’s murky censorship territory, but I don’t imagine many people complaining about removing the blatant sexualization of a middle schooler from the game.
Whatever action PQube takes, I am done. Maybe I’ve already seen all of the “racy” interactions the player has with Tatiana, but I’ve seen enough. I will not be finishing Our World Is Ended. I am amazed the game made it onto the PlayStation 4 in North America, let alone the Nintendo Switch. I am a huge proponent of racy console games, but there are limits. This game crossed them.
Comments
24 responses to “This Sexy Sci-Fi Game Was Embarrassing But Fun Until It Started Sexualizing A Middle Schooler”
really…….
you didn’t enjoy aspects of this game…. maybe some people would enjoy this game.
maybe just get over yourself, we all know your end game here you want to have this type of game banned or censored or whatever. I don’t like these kinds of games either but at least i have the courtesy to just not buy them, let the people who enjoy these games enjoy them.
every day it’s just more pearl clutching bullshit censors trying to remove something they don’t like, spicy memes, edgy comedy, edgy games. There are actual shitty things published occasionally that deserve to be destroyed (that rape game for example) but as usual Kotaku writers need to get that pay check right gotta get some $$ so you can buy avocado toast for the next 2 weeks.
Who enjoys this element of this game? You sound a bit sensitive…
You’re upset that a site who’s primary purpose is to post their opinions on games, posts their opinion on this game. Doesn’t call for censorship, doesn’t call for bans, just posts how it made them personally uncomfortable.
Okay then
ok so we pretend that getting this weaboo shit banned is not exactly where this article is heading?
okay then in that case i was totally wrong, and some nerdy weebs aren’t about to have the games they like nuked out of existence.
my bad i apologise
Weird, but not offensive. You’d have to be trying pretty hard to be offended about this. Especially considering Tatiana is chastising the main character for it.
…which is a pretty standard Japanese hentai trope.
Fahey just wanted to clutch his pearls a bit and show everyone that even though he professes to love etchi games, he is still progressive!
So hentai tropes are the standard we should accept for games that kids may be exposed to? Turn it up…
Why would kids be exposed to this? It’s rated M for mature and has a very detailed rating guide…
Yeah, because those rating systems are perfect. That’s why no one under 18 has ever played GTA V, eh?
Okay… I have a feeling though that if you did a survey of parents they’d be much more likely to allow their kids to play violent games than titillating hentai games.
Without a doubt but considering the effort a lot of parents put in to actually researching the games, checking the content and following the ratings, I wonder what most would choose if you set GTA and this down in front of them.
I wouldn’t be at all shocked if many chose the harmless looking cartoon one.
(The cover looks completely tame)
Not disagreeing with your comments, just adding that in.
That would be hilarious.
No one bats an eye when kids are exposed to things in GTA and there are A LOT of kids playing GTA but sure, lets get up in arms about some visual novel that the vast majority of younguns will probably never hear of.
This is the same guy who has a tattoo of a “500 year god who looks like a little girl” character.
Maybe at your work, but definitely not at mine!
Um, what?
Yeah, I have absolutely no idea either and it’s bugging the shit out of me.
@bass400
“I’m so wet” – sounds like it could be a double entendre, considering the subject matterAh, gotcha.
Yeah, I feel kind of dumb now.
Are you the reason why Sony is being such a hard-on with censorship? If you are please stop.
I imagine that Sony is going along, minding its own business, when it enters an orchard filled with delicious peaches. It hears a buzzing noise, and sees that between the peach trees there are hives of tiny (but savage) bees. Beekeeper Mike Fahey, dressed in full protective gear, sees Sony reaching for those sweet, sweet peaches, and says “Hey Sony, I don’t think you really want to take THOSE peaches. The bees might get angry otherwise.” He cackles, lazily tapping a billy club against the side of a hive, as the buzzing of irritated bees rises in intensity. “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?” Sony slowly slinks away and buys some nice, processed peaches instead.
“but I don’t imagine many people complaining about removing the blatant sexualization of a middle schooler from the game.”
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahah ha. Ha
Oh you sweet sweet cinnamon role, what faith in humanity you have, what pure naive thoughts
if they censor the loli the dregs of the internet will throw a huge tantrum
What’s middle school? 16?