BioWare: No nudity in Dragon Age an 'artistic choice'

'We don't strive for gratuitous content', says Muzyka.

The lack of nudity in the sex scenes in 18-rated fantasy role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins was "an artistic choice", developer BioWare has claimed.

Dragon Age: Origins, out now for PC and Xbox 360 and with a PS3 version due before the end of the month, contains a number of sex scenes.

Sex is possible with the game's party members, and with prostitutes in brothels. However, underwear is always worn during sex scenes, despite the game's 18 rating.

"It's an artistic choice by the development team," explained BioWare co-founder and CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka to VideoGamer.com in a wide-ranging interview.

"We don't constrain what they do. We don't strive for gratuitous content. But we also ask the teams to choose a direction and then run with it. That was their choice. That's how they wanted to depict the romantic liaisons in the game, so that's what we did."

We criticised the sex scenes in our review, calling them "horribly animated" and "anti-climactic". The rest of the game, however, is great.

As an 18-rated game, is it right that Dragon Age: Origins does not contain nudity? Let us know in the comments section below.