Let’s not beat around the bush, some video game characters are hot as hell. As tech has gotten ever more advanced, the characters have gotten more and more lifelike, with video games appealing to everyone, be it with the impossibly perfect Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith of Final Fantasy VII Remake, the blood-spattered hotties of Resident Evil, or your more mature hunks like The Last of Us‘ Joel (he can give us a ‘hole-in-one’ any day!).
But things don’t stop there: there are a huge number of video game characters that fans get weak at the knees over that weren’t ever intended to be sexy or attractive. We’re talking robots, non-human aliens, monsters, supernatural deities, and yup, straight-up animals. So, let’s get down to it and pick through some of the strangest characters fans got way – way – too horny over.
Garrus – Mass Effect series
Let’s get the most obvious candidate out of the way early on. BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy is about saving the galaxy while getting it on with as many of your crewmates as possible. The first game played it fairly vanilla, with men given space-racist Ashley Williams, women the dull Kaiden Alenko, and both genders can woo adorkable blue-skinned alien Liara.
But by Mass Effect 2, they’d loosened their collars after fans demanded the opportunity to bed more varied characters. And by far the most unlikely hunk is calibration-obsessed insect/reptile alien Garrus. Your C-Sec sniper buddy proved to be the stand-out romantic partner from the trilogy, with many players finding the sense of trust and security that having him alongside you easily developing into romance.
A feature on Kotaku a few years back interviewed women horny for Garrus, who praised his sexy voice, the notion that he’s confident but “unsure and gentle as a lover.” and the fact that he wants to make sex work despite his radically different body is a turn-on. We’re not going to argue.
D’Vorah – Mortal Kombat series
While we’re on a ‘sexy insect people’ vibe, we’d be remiss not to mention Mortal Kombat‘s D’Vorah. Introduced in Mortal Kombat X, D’Vorah is the last surviving member of her race and primarily concerned with reviving The Hive. As such, she allies herself with Shao Kahn and acts as an antagonist.
But is she hot? Well, even though she’s basically a walking wasp/human hybrid, she is vaguely girl-shaped and conventionally attractive. If you squint a bit and ignore the chitinous exoskeleton. But, much like the sharp-toothed monster lady Mileena, D’Vorah is a bait and switch from the developers, hoping you’ll be first intrigued and then disgusted when you discover her true nature.
That’s evident in some of the most disgusting fatalities ever seen in a Mortal Kombat game. The grossest sees her grabbing her opponent and vomiting a mass of insect eggs, maggots, and mucus into their mouths, after which a large spider tears its way out of her body. She can also send clouds of wasps to eat you, pump infectious green pus into your body, and tear your skin off with her ovipositors.
Incredibly, this is still a ‘swipe right’ situation for many players. Players respond to her “adorable little tiny voice,” say “she looks like Jennifer Lopez… if Jennifer Lopez were a really gross bug lady.” Others more sensibly say “just stick your wang in a beehive for a similar sexual experience.”
Mr. X – Resident Evil 2 Remake
For the vast majority of Resident Evil 2 Remake players, Mr. X is the most terrifying thing in the game. He’s an all-but-unstoppable force of nature stomping his way through the Raccoon City Police Station with the sole aim of squashing Leon/Claire into the dirt. But for some, one of Umbrella’s most unnerving creations is “a very erotic man full of passion.”
It’s perhaps notable that a mod to get rid of X’s raincoat and hat and replace it with a scanty pair of Umbrella-branded speedos has clocked up 18,600 unique downloads, with users confessing that seeing him in his full glory “made me question my sexuality… I’m not sure what to think.” Others are taking things one step further by demanding a fully nude mod, presumably one which is physics-enabled.
Beyond this Mr. X is a regular co-star in Resident Evil fan-made porn, where the most depraved desires of the community are made flesh. All we know is we’re quietly stocking up on flame and acid rounds and muttering under our breath that X ain’t gonna give it to us.
Red XIII – Final Fantasy VII Remake
As mentioned above, Final Fantasy VII Remake is wall-to-wall (market) hotties. Tifa and Aerith are both jaw-droppingly beautiful and Cloud nails the broody hunk look (as well as looking delightful in drag). But many fans find their eyes straying past the crew of insanely attractive mercenaries and eco-terrorists to… a cat.
Yup, Red XIII is a crimson cat with a flaming tail. The Remake only covers the Midgar portion of the original game and Red XIII only appears in the closing chapters, but that’s enough for some fans to admit that they want to get it on with what is – let’s not beat around the bush here – a whole ass cat. But, as one besotted fan says: “Red XIII please don’t look at me with those gleaming bright eyes…”
But, we guess there are some mitigating circumstances. Red XIII is at least a sentient talking cat, so at least he can consent. That’s about it, that’s all we got. Leave the damn cat alone.
Pyramid Head – Silent Hill series
Pyramid Head is Silent Hill‘s most terrifying inhabitant. In Silent Hill 2, he was introduced with his iconic rusted helmet and butcher’s knife doing unspeakable things to a mutant nurse. He was eventually revealed to be a manifestation of the player character’s guilt, a way to punish him for his actions, and a genuinely unsettling demonic force for evil.
So, naturally, thousands of people see this sadistic nightmare monster and think: “I can fix him.”
There are innumerable threads of Reddit full of people straight-up horny for Pyramid Head, saying “something about him is hella sexy. Agree 1000%. I’d totally try to hit on him even if he was gonna chase me,” along with the comment, “I mean- a muscular half-naked entity created for the sole purpose of punishing u… kinda hot huh?,” or “The metal triangle on his head is cute but then you see his giant muscles and go WOAH.”
Somehow, we think that might not be what creator Masahiro Ito intended when creating the character, which may be why he tweeted:
Sonic the Hedgehog – Sonic the Hedgehog series
Internet users have been biting their lower lips over Sonic the Hedgehog since the mid-1990s and it’s possible that there’s more fan-generated (and incredibly weird) porn of Sonic than any other video game character on the planet. So, why is a blue hedgehog with an attitude such a magnet for horny people?
Many theorize that it’s his rebellious nature, with his personality showing him as confident and self-assured. To many, that’s a huge turn-on, which might be why Sonic regularly tops polls of the sexist video game character (he’s apparently extremely popular amongst Japanese women). But who knows, maybe it’s just because he strolls around in public in sneakers, gloves and nothing else.
Sega themselves once tried to lean into Sonic being hot for humans. 2006’s Sonic the Hedgehog saw Sonic in a bizarre hedgehog/human romantic relationship with Princess Elise, which culminates in her kissing him. This has gone down in gaming history as one of the most bizarre cutscenes of all time, but it pales in comparison to even the most vanilla stuff the internet has to offer. Guess some people gotta…. g-g-g-go fast.
Vaporeon – Pokémon series
Here it is folks, the bottom of the barrel. Sure, some of the above might not have been human, but at least they were sentient. Vaporeon is, unfortunately for us all, just a Pokémon. Introduced as the water evolution of Eevee in Pokémon Red/Blue, it spent many years as just another one of the original 151… and then something happened on 4Chan.
A now notorious post outlined in excruciating detail why Vaporeon is the most sexually compatible Pokémon for humans, listing their base stats, ability to learn potentially erotic moves like Attract, Baby-Doll Eyes, Captivate, Charm, and Tail Whip, their size, and saying their watery nature makes them… well, you can finish that sentence for yourselves.
That post went viral and now this humble water type is inextricably linked with horniness. As such, when the official Pokémon UK Twitter page asked users why Vaporeon is #ThePokemonForYou, the comments were a deluge of horny reaction memes:
Whether Vaporeon will ever recover from this reputation remains to be seen, though we suspect any official Pokémon/Nintendo channel will think twice before posting any Vaporeon-related content.