What Its Creator Has to Say About Oblivion Topless Mod

It's a story GamePolitics passed on more than a month ago and, to be honest, we're still not sure how much ink the user-modified topless female characters in Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion deserve.

On April 2nd a source we know and trust pointed us to the patch at Adult Game Reviews (definitely not safe for work). The site also has nude skins for the previous Elder Scrolls RPG, Morrowind as well as for Tomb Raider, The Sims and several other games.

But the patch available there may also be found at Oblivion Source, a fan site which describes itself as "dedicated to the upcoming Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion game and TES (The Elder Scrolls series) games in general..."

The creator of the nude Oblivion patch, "Maeyanie," uploaded the file on March 24th, just four days after Oblivion's release. Maeyanie's comments to the file seem to place responsibility for the creation of the breasts in question with the developer:

"In the process of trying to create a nude skin for Oblivion, I found Bethesda had already done all the work for me. They just covered it up with underwear afterwards... Please note, this is a realistic nudity mod, not a pornographic one. The file included removes the bra welded to the skin of females of all races, showing things as most people know they are in the real world after removing upper body clothing. It will not show every female in the game as topless."

Beyond the usual tech challenges, Maeyanie's motivation for creating the topless patch is given as:

"I do this because I hate government/society/whatever forcing companies to 'protect our innocent population from seeing those evil dirty things 50% of them possess personally anyways' not because I'm trying to turn it into a porn game."

Maeyanie mentions also that he or she was unable to patch the lower character torsos - thus sparing the world genitalia-equipped Oblivion characters. As of this writing, the patch is still available at both Oblivion Source and Adult Game Reviews, but GP wonders how long that will last.

Although Maeyenie's feedback among Oblivion Source users was generally positive, a long volley of comments appended to the patch file page indicate that some fans almost immediately feared a Hot Coffee redux. Cook commented "DON'T RECREATE HOTCOFFEE!! I give you a 1 (rating out of 10). I appreciate your work, but be afraid of the oppressive game companies..."

chr43 wrote, "If you want nudity, go buy a porn game or movie instead of ruining a good game. Eric added, "...you guys are really pathetic. Please stop reinforcing negative gamer stereotypes that people who play games are sexually frustrated deviants."

The comments appear to have taken their toll on Maeyanie, who wrote, "Due to the number of thoroughly depressing comments, I'm no longer providing any support or updates. Nor will I release any further mods of this nature, for this game or others. I'm not regretting having made this. But I am regretting releasing it to the horny, immature masses out there..."

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