20 Video Games That Pushed the Envelope

Since their rise to popularity in the 1980s, video games have constantly pushed the boundaries of what’s appropriate in entertainment, especially in entertainment primarily aimed at teens and young children. There’s no shortage of infamous titles out there, from games that broke taboos about sex and violence to those that were deemed so offensive that they were recalled or never even released. Part of the appeal of games, whether it’s in the college dorm room or at home, Here are 20 of the most infamous games that pushed the envelope.

Harvester (1996)
This point-and-click PC game was almost ahead of its time in terms of the way it displayed intense violence and forced the player to make a series of gruesome choices. The player inhabits the role of Steve Mason, who’s been kidnapped and hooked up to a virtual reality machine that gradually trains him to be a real-life serial killer, and the game ends with the player able to choose to kill their virtual girlfriend and be freed into the “real world” to keep killing. The game was released in Great Britain with several scenes missing and banned completely in Germany.

Manhunt (2003)
This PlayStation 2 title (later for Xbox and Windows) from controversial developer Rockstar Games tested players’ — and critics’ — stomachs with its graphic storyline. The player controls a convict who’s been abducted and taken to a rundown neighborhood, and who is forced to kill the thugs he encounters in order to survive and escape. The methods of murder were particularly rough: With the push of a button, players could club someone with a baseball bat, smother them with a plastic bag, or slash their throat with glass. The game’s profile in a 2004 U.K. murder scared away some vendors but only increased demand for the hyper-violent title.