GTA San Andreas Truly Screwed up When Modders Found Unfinished ‘Hot Coffee’ Codes That Let CJ Sleep With His Girlfriend In-Game

The GTA series is regarded as one of the most popular gaming franchises of all time. This series has given us some legendary titles like Grand Theft Auto 5, San Andreas, Vice City, and many more. Along with the fame, the franchise is often criticized for some of its controversial aspects as well.

Be it Grand Theft Auto 3 being banned in Australia or the controversial dialogues in Vice City, citing hate crimes – these series had to face a lot of backlash from the people. But things went out of hand when some in-game files of an unreleased minigame in San Andreas were found by modders later on.

‘Hot Coffee’ Controversy in GTA San Andreas

Hot Coffee was an unfinished mini-game in GTA San Andreas that Rockstar decided not to include in the game. This mini-game allowed CJ to have sex with his girlfriend. The naming of this feature was such because CJ’s various girlfriends used ‘coffee’ as a metaphor for ‘sex.’

Now the shocking part is that this activity is player-controlled, not some random cutscenes. Rockstar knew that this aspect of the game might stir serious controversy; hence, they decided to ditch this. However, despite not being in the game, the unfinished codes and assets of this feature were later found out by modders on the DVDs and download files of the PS2, Xbox, and PC versions.

As a consequence, they found a way to sort out the codes and eventually access the feature on all formats. Modders used this feature to exploit the relationship mechanic, and it allowed them to slowly romance several women and eventually have sex with them. Not only that, this mod had several button commands that let the players perform different sexual positions.

Rockstar and Take-Two Had to Face Lawsuits

This kind of explicit content was absolutely not received well by the people. Things went out of hand when even US government officials were involved. Senator Hillary Clinton went on to slam both ESRB and Rockstar for this incident. Many people claimed the game to have the highest possible rating, which is Adults Only. But this would have destroyed the future of the game.

The claim was so intense that an 85-year-old woman filed a class action lawsuit against Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive on the charges of fraud in terms of ratings, deception, and false advertising. The whole incident took place exactly when Take-Two’s owners were already under investigation for inside trading.

Now coming to the verdict, was it right or wrong? Basically, in these kinds of scenarios, you can’t just blatantly categorize an authority and put a stamp on it. Despite video games being a long-standing media format, people still think it’s only for kids. That is why, to keep these kinds of content, there is an appropriate rating on them. Despite any kind of horrific violence in video games is still accepted by people, sex is still considered taboo.

What’s your opinion on this? Let us know your views in the comment section.