Does the Upcoming South Park Game Cross a Line?

Before I start, I know what you are thinking. "This is going to be some whiney article that wants the South Park franchise to fail." Well, that is where you are very wrong. I loved the first game, "South Park: The Stick of Truth", even if it made me uncomfortable sometimes with its humor. That uncomfortable feeling is kind of what the creator's go for. That is fine, but we need to call this out for what it is. Disturbing. To a level that makes me not want to buy this game. I hope you enjoy my personal opinion about the subject. Thanks for reading.

I feel like South Park creators and producers are probably used to getting all kinds of criticism. They make shows that are meant to offend and make fun of people in a way that we can relate to (sometimes). I never thought I would be in a position to do this before, but I have been thinking a lot about this. Does South Park: The Fractured But Whole cross a line?

You may not be familiar with the subject matter as the game has not yet been released and the only way to know about this footage is to watch previews by "lets players" on youtube. The scene in question is one in which the main characters seem to be looking for a stripper with a penis tattoo. Nothing too out of place for South Park there. The part where things start getting weird is when the main characters start questioning people in the strip club. From what I saw, one of the supporting characters says that he will talk but first he wants a private dance. I think at this point, the main characters agree because they do not know what in fact that means.

Once the main characters which, I must remind my readers, are CHILDREN, enter the back room at the strip club, the NPC's say they won't talk until the kids "grind on his chub". The children start to grind on the man's genitals (everyone is still fully clothed) until a screen cuts in and informs the player that there will be a "Lap Dancing Minigame".

In this minigame, the player controls a child (approx 8-10 years of age) grinding on a fully grown man. The developers have seemed to try and add fart sounds and green clouds to try and make the game seem more about silly/gross farting than a sex act, but the fact remains. The player is asked to move the left stick around in a circular fashion as the character on screen rubs his butt against the man's crotch. There is one point in which the main character on screen seems to be humping the leg of the man, and then finally, the game ends when you twerk in the man's face and finally fart loudly in his face at the end.

Make no mistake, I am not accusing anyone of a crime here. I don't have a lawyer to say yes or no on that one, but as a matter of principle, this is SUUUUPER FUCKED UP! I showed this scene to my dad and asked him what the first words that popped into his head were. After hearing his answers, I knew that I wasn't being overly sensitive. The words that first came to his mind after watching the scene were "pedophilia" and "child pornography". From a creative perspective, when your game gives off the impression of those words, you might want to consider taking the scene a different direction. Before I move away from this section, I want to be crystal clear. I am not accusing the developers of creating anything that is actually pedophilia or child pornography,

How did this idea get this far into development? Custom music for the strip club, voiceovers for the characters, full animations and even a minigame. I don't know if the fart noises were added in at the last second to dodge any full legal heat, but the farting does seem like an odd placement. Nowhere before the minigame is there any mention of farting, almost as if they retroactively realized how terrible this would look to players and journalists.

I am going to feature pictures from a video on the"AngryJoeShow" YouTube channel. Click here to watch the video for yourself (there is a high likelihood that it will be taken down at some point.) I just want to warn everyone before scrolling any further, this is some seriously disturbing stuff. The still images might convey the full message but there is something about seeing a depiction of a child grinding on a fully grown man that just makes me sick.