While most video game players know not to judge a video game by its cover, the truth is that many times video games are sold on the strength of their cover alone. And clearly casual players will be drawn to a pretty-looking cover, especially if the game in question has made headlines due to its box art being controversial for some reason.
And whether it was due to sexism, racist undertones or just being plain bland, the truth is that more than one video game cover has been quite controversial. Here follows a list of the top most controversial video game covers to date.
Doom
More than a few fans of the Doom series and video game industry pundits were shocked when they saw Bethesda’s cover art for their 2016 Doom reboot. But strangely enough, the controversy wasn’t about sex or sexism, but about how boring and bland Doom’s cover art was.
The cover features a lone muscle-bound space marine and it’s as bland and generic as anyone could imagine, suggesting Bethesda’s game is just any ordinary sci-fi shooter instead of a reboot of the legendary doom series. But at least Bethesda let fans pick an image for the game’s reverse sleeve cover, which turned out to be a pretty decent homage to the original game’s cover art.
Far Cry 4
Far Cry 4 was a decent successor to the classic Far Cry 3 with its great Himalayan setting, top-notch action and superb villain Pagan Min. But the game’s originally proposed cover art (which was later changed) shocked some people due to its racist undertones. In the cover, dictator Pagan Min is putting his hand on the head of a subjugated native of the game’s fictional country of Kyrat, in an apparent show of power (and ego no doubt…)
But Ubisoft later pointed out that both characters are natives of Kyrat (from the same ethnic group) and that the image was not meant to be seen as racist in any way, although the resulting controversy led to Ubisoft pulling the cover image and replacing it with another, more conservative one…