Something is Afoot in the Games Industry and There’s No Tip-Toeing Around It

Something smelly’s happening in the game industry, and I don’t just mean the endless stream of scandals, layoffs, and lawsuits. I’m talking explicitly about the characters who are all about showing off their ankles, arches, and toes.

Something is Afoot in the Games Industry and There’s No Tip-Toeing Around It

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, look at your favorite AAA game, then drag your eyes down to their feet. You might not want to see it, but there’s a good chance that all ten of their little piglets are riding the ground raw. Unprotected from dirt, debris, and all types of filth.

What’s going on? Has it always been this way? Or is there a newly establish cabal of feet-loving character designers that are taking over game studios the world over?

I suspect that these feet-worshippers have been in society for quite some time, but they were restricted to characters with a slightly more “untamed” look, like Jecht from Final Fantasy X, or pretty much any dancer or spellcaster, like Azura from Fire Emblem.

But things have progressively gotten much worse.

Dead by Daylight, an asymmetrical horror multiplayer game, is known for having a wide vast of both Killers and Survivors, many of which are original. And seven of the original killers in Dead by Daylight have their feet out. That’s all of their female killers except one. They put her in a bedazzled leotard.

But Dead by Daylight isn’t the only culprit. Soulsborne games are notorious for having characters with their grippers out. Prime examples are Maiden in Black, Priscilla, Gwyndolin, Gwynevere, need I go on? I could, by the way. I could go on for quite some time.

Related: Sanctuary’s Best Dressed: Diablo 4 Beta’s Most Hellish Transmogs

Elden Ring followed the trend and gave players ample opportunity to check out Rennala’s feet, but she isn’t the only one. A degenerate in the Steam community even made a guide on the many types of feet you can encounter in The Lands Between, with closeups of each pair. And by the Two-Fingers, there are a lot of bare feet in Elden Ring. From the Finger Readers to Master Hewg, it’s clear that someone painstakingly detailed each of those little toes, coating them lovingly in grime, veins, and calluses.

Even Malenia’s greaves have toes carved into them. With toenails.

Speaking of terrible things the internet has done, you might as well know about the infamous Toe Gallery for Overwatch 2, which compiles close ups of each hero’s feet. If I have to carry this cursed knowledge with me, you do too. And with the arrival of Lifeweaver, you can bet the foot-loving community is going absolutely wild. Not that I know, of course.

Game designers clearly have feet on the brain. But would it kill them to occasionally slide some socks on those piggies? Sometimes ideas should stay buried deep in a private Tumblr account, or in a Twitter account marked as 18+.

If you want to read about other terrible things, why not check out what you can do in Jedi Survivor?: Wait… Jedi Survivor has Human Dismemberment?.