I was a videogame-obsessed teenager in the 1990s and it seemed like every single gaming magazine (and several of my friends) had one holy grail: The Tomb Raider nude code. The small detail of Core Design's blockbuster adventure game not actually having one was irrelevant: Thanks to a few doctored screenshots and irrepressible playground murmurings, the legend persisted and, for decades to come, it felt like no Tomb Raider feature was complete without the "nude mod" explainer boxout.
One need only look at some of the more questionable corners of modding to see that the human impulse to see virtual humans naked shall never subside. But now we may have a new origin point for one of videogaming's most persistently grubby habits. Brace yourself: It's over four decades old, and involves… Smurfette.
