Throughout the history of gaming, numerous video games have spawned massive controversies, with a majority of the outrage happening during the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s. Now considered retro games by many, these titles hold an important piece of gaming history thanks to the splash they made upon their release (often for all the wrong reasons).
From moral outrage to boycotts and even a full-blown Senate hearing, some retro games caused an absolute moral panic, resulting in boundless controversy. Often the issues centered around a game’s violence or sexual content—and in a few cases, both. While many controversial games seem tame when compared to modern releases, some remain highly contentious and continue to shock gamers and critics to this day.
Explicit, sensitive topics are discussed below. Reader discretion is advised.
10 Custer’s Revenge (1982) – Atari 2600
Custer’s Revenge is shockingly offensive and tacky beyond belief. In real life, Custer died at the Battle of Little Bighorn after he and his army tried to decimate a Native American village. In the game, Custer is now getting his “revenge” by raping Native American women.
Players navigate a nude Custer through falling arrows to get him to have intercourse with a Native woman. Released a decade before the creation of the ESRB, the game was released as an “Adult Video Game” and was supposed to be funny—but instead, it was abhorrent. By April 1983, the game was no longer being sold after numerous women’s groups and First Nations advocates launched successful boycott campaigns.
9 Chiller (1986) – Nintendo NES, Arcade
In Chiller, gamers take on the role of an executioner who must kill and mutilate prisoners. The object of the game is to cause as much carnage as possible during a given time limit. Thanks to the game’s lack of plot, dated graphics, and awful sound quality, Chiller seems a bit tame these days, but upon its release, the concept of urging players to mutilate bodies sparked an outrage.
Chiller received even more scrutiny in 1990 when it was ported to the NES since kids around the world could play the game from their living rooms. However, the NES version’s graphics were massively scaled back, making the game less grotesque than its arcade predecessor.
8 Freedom! (1992) – Apple II
Originally released with the intent of being educational, Freedom! was similar to the edutainment game The Oregon Trail, but placed gamers in the shoes of an escaped slave who is trying to make their way North to freedom. While the game was made with good intentions and was designed to be used in schools, it was rarely played in an educational context.
Shortly after Freedom!‘s release, the game was pulled from shelves after parents began complaining that the game trivialized slavery and was actually causing students to make racist jokes. Freedom! has never been re-released and is now considered lost media.
7 Mortal Kombat (1992) – Arcade, Genesis/Mega Drive, SNES
In 1992, Mortal Kombat launched in arcades. The game was bloody and was developed using digitized sprites based on real actors, giving it a surprisingly realistic look for the time. The game’s gory deaths caused a massive controversy, which got even larger the following year when the game was ported to the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive.
To quell the outrage, Nintendo vowed to change the game’s blood to “sweat” by coloring it gray, but SEGA wanted to appeal to older gamers, so they kept the blood in. Upon its release, the console version was incredibly controversial and it in large part gave birth to the “violent video games create violent people” argument (which studies have proven to be false).
6 Night Trap (1992) – SEGA CD, 32X, 3DO
Night Trap was an FMV (full-motion video) game that saw a group of girls spend the night in a giant mansion inhabited by vampires who want to kill them. By modern standards, the game is a campy romp filled with horrible acting, cheap music, and amazingly dated late-’80s fashion (the game was actually filmed in 1987). But at the time, it was shocking since it was the first major FMV game on a home console.
Many people felt that watching animated video game characters was one thing, but seeing vampires attack “real” people crossed the line. Night Trap (along with Mortal Kombat) even spurred a Congressional hearing in 1993 that discussed violence and sexuality in video games. The result of the hearings was the ESRB, which was tasked with rating games so parents could control what their children played.
5 Doom (1993) – DOS, SNES, Jaguar, 32X, 3DO
Doom was one of gaming’s first first-person shooters and it completely revolutionized the industry. Before long, “Doom clones” were popping up everywhere and more and more players began craving the excitement of the FPS genre. However, the game’s setting involved a soldier entering hell to fight demons, which upset many.
The ample amounts of violence combined with demonic imagery quickly turned Doom into one of the most controversial games ever. It didn’t help that the Congressional hearings had happened earlier that year, so the concept of video game violence was still fresh in the social conscience. Doom received even more controversy in 1999 after it was discovered that the Columbine shooters frequently played the game.
4 Phantasmagoria (1995) – PC, Saturn
Another controversial FMV game was 1995’s Phantasmagoria. In the game, players take control of novelist Adrienne Delaney, who, along with her husband, moves into a haunted New England mansion where the previous owner had murdered five women. As a horror game, Phantasmagoria featured images of torture and death and even a scene of (clothes on) rape.
Just like Night Trap, being FMV made all the images more disturbing since they were happening to real people instead of pixilated sprites. The game was heavily boycotted, and some stores even refused to sell it. However, its controversies created hype, which fueled sales, turning Phantasmagoria into a financial success.
3 Postal (1997) – PC
A man—dubbed the”Postal Dude”—believes the US government is gassing its own citizens and that only he is immune. From there, he shoots his way through his town, killing innocent civilians, police officers, and military personnel, all culminating with an attempted school shooting.
Postal was controversial upon its release, but its later sequels received even more scrutiny, and many complained that the franchise continued to glorify violence even in the years directly following mass tragedies like Columbine and 9/11. In 2007, Postal received an equally controversial film adaptation directed by Uwe Boll.
2 Grand Theft Auto III (2001) – PS2, PC, Xbox
Grand Theft Auto III remains one of the most controversial games ever. Released just one month after the 9/11 attacks, GTA III let players run around a giant city, committing debauchery at every turn. From killing cops to having sex with prostitutes, crashing airplanes, and more, the game was wildly offensive at the time of its release.
On top of creating a media storm, it was censored in numerous European countries and was completely banned in Australia. But GTA III also changed gaming forever. With a large open world, numerous radio stations players could listen to, and interactive NPCs, the game ushered in a new era that created immersive worlds players could explore.
1 Manhunt (2003) – PS2, Xbox
In Manhunt, players wake up as a convicted killer who has a chance at freedom is he completes a series of murders. The game’s content alone made it controversial, but a 2004 murder put Manhunt in the headlines around the globe. A 14-year-old boy in the UK was murdered by another teenager, and the victim’s parents blamed Manhunt, claiming that the killer was “obsessed” with the game.
Retailers across the UK pulled the game from shelves, as did stores in Germany, New Zealand, and Australia. However, without any solid evidence linking the killer and Manhunt, the crime was ultimately considered to be gang-related. In 2007 Manhunt received a sequel, which caused its own controversy after several politicians and advocacy groups demanded the game receive an AO rating.