What’s up with boob armor in games? Why’s it even there? Imagine you walked into a room full of soldiers and one of them had on boob armor. Would you take the soldier seriously? If you answered yes, then that’s… interesting. For everybody else of course, you wouldn’t take it seriously! Boob armor is only a teensy bit more realistic than sporting green tank tops and shorts in the jungle.

Here’s the thing: armor is supposed to protect you. Not highlight your curves, not give you an iron push-up bra, and definitely not create two perfect little metal bowls that would guide a sword straight into the sternum. Functionally, boob armor is worse than no armor at all. It’s like saying, “Yes, I’d like to double my chances of dying on the battlefield, but could you also make sure I look fabulous while doing it?”

The excuse is always the same: “It’s fantasy!” Which is true. But when orcs are carrying twenty pounds of rusted steel and trolls are somehow swinging tree trunks like baseball bats, the only thing that snaps me out of immersion is the heroine strutting into battle in a metal bikini. There’s suspension of disbelief… and then there’s insult to disbelief.

What makes it more ridiculous is how uneven it is. Male characters? They get full plate. Helmets, chainmail, reinforced padding, the works. Female characters? They get a shiny corset and maybe some thigh-high boots if the artist was feeling generous. You could drop a house on the male knight and he’d walk away. A stray arrow would take out the female one before she even had time to draw her sword.

And yet, here we are, decades into modern gaming and film, still seeing “armor” that looks like it was designed by a horny blacksmith who failed out of trade school.

So here’s my plea: let’s retire boob armor. Give female warriors real armor, the same way you’d give it to male warriors. They can still look cool, they can still look powerful, but they don’t need to look like they’re about to fight evil on the runway at Fashion Week. Fantasy is supposed to be larger than life, sure—but at least make it survivable.