Oh no! Boobess!

Pandemic’s upcoming tour-de-force, The Saboteur, has recently been granted an “M 17+” rating by the ESRB. This should come as no surprise, being that a large portion of the game is set in a brothel in 1940s, Nazi-occupied Paris.

Screenshots for the upcoming title were revealed recently, and they’re quite suggestive. This has caused a minor stir, but in our interactions with Pandemic, they have been up front about the mature nature of the game from the very beginning. There will be nudity, there will be gratuitous violence, and there will be revenge.

Lead Designer Tom French recently commented on the minor controversy caused by the nude screenshot reveal.

Try your best to imagine yourself living in the 1940s. Contrary to popular belief (or perhaps even the creative liberties we’ve taken with our own game), the world wasn’t actually black and white. It was a very different place culturally. The reputation of Paris during that era was in many ways more like one of a modern-day Las Vegas. It was a place where the everyday person could run away to, escape, hide out for a while, forget their problems, lose themselves – and probably go home with a tattoo they didn’t remember asking for. It was rowdy, it was debaucherous, and – depending on your scruples – it was glorious! Now imagine that every street corner of this seductive city is crawling with the most feared military force the world has ever seen – the Nazi army. The contrast here is really intriguing, and it forced a lot of that “Sin City” element to go underground in order to survive. It was exciting, it was sexy, and it was something that has been pretty much erased from the history books!

Perhaps we are getting closer to the point where a pair of female breasts no longer causes a stir in this country. Americans tend to be quite uptight and prudish with this sort of thing. It’s refreshing that Pandemic is taking the lead on this issue, and not dumbing down the cultural and historical reality of ‘beautiful, Nazi-occupied Paris’.

The Saboteur is shaping up to be a tremendous release; the absolute passion that the developers have been pouring into this game shines through. Release is slated for December 8th.