Editor's Note: this piece contains adult content, as well as plot spoilers from Dishonored, Far Cry 3, and Darkness II.
If violence is inseparable from video games, sex may never have a major place in them. We can luxuriate in their animated encyclopedia of fantasies, but directly referencing sex apparently risks ruining the whole illusion. In 2012, games were less shy about introducing sex into their worlds, and yet most of the times it was left off in margins, something to catalyze a character's motivation or animate a bawdy background. But even as an intermittent presence it has a powerful and surprisingly broad range of effects.
Max Payne 3's sense of sexuality was inseparable from its protagonist, a depleted stag who has traded his sexual optimism for alcohol and painkillers. His true love long dead, Max has migrated into a stage in his life where sex is something other people do. This is reinforced in a mid-game level where Max wanders into a brothel in a poor Rio neighborhood. The place is old and dirty and as Max works his way out of it, shooting at local gangsters, you'll see customers enjoying sexual play in the background. Even when surrounded by sex he is disengaged from it, resigned to the fact that human comfort and closeness are no longer possible for a man with his history.
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