Friday, April 10, 2015

Not Fluffy Bunny Rabbits

Animation isn't all about the cute.

They're Trying To Make The Goriest Video Game Ever

It all started with one completely anatomically accurate virtual person. And then they slashed the person to ribbons. ...

In the beginning, there was man, and then man got his skull caved in by a sledgehammer shotgun. That's kind of how things went for chaotic co-op monster-slaying FPS Killing Floor 2's gore and dismemberment system, though. Creative director William Munk told me that his studio spent a year of development time on making sure blood spurted just right, sinews snapped like meaty rubber bands, and fat didn't burst so much as it parted itself. ...

They wanted to make the most detailed, horror-movie-like gore system in video game history. They appear to have succeeded. But what drives people to try to make a game this spectacularly bloody? ...

"For the head, each Zed has its own head, and inside that is a skull mesh," explained character artist Andrew Quintiliani. "If you blow away the left half of the head, it'll take out the skull. You can see that the Zed is missing a solid half of its head. And then if you look at it, you'll see that there's an accurate sinus system, brain cavity, and brain matter. Then you can see part of the throat, and if you blow off the jaw you can see back into the esophagus."

"I tried to put a lot of detail into it. That's what makes it look really disgusting. A lot of games just have generic meat chunks. That's fine, we have a few of those too. But that's on top of accurate muscle and sinew and bone explosions." ...

What I know about gory video games is minimal. The resident video game expert in the house said:

This stuff looks pretty tame to me. You want REAL blood and gore, a nice super high body count, look at Mortal Kombat X" ...



What do I know? Killing Floor 2 looked wonderfully nauseating to me. Mortal Kombat X is, apparently, for the most discerning fans of violent death.

4 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

This is why I don't play video games anymore, not after the turn of the century.

I miss when we had stuff like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7aZoMqA9GQ

Celshader said...

"This stuff looks pretty tame to me. You want REAL blood and gore, a nice super high body count, look at Mortal Kombat X" ..."

I realize that was a sample of one, but I wonder if it indicates an audience preference for art-directed gore over physically-accurate gore.

Grant said...

They do this because it's easy to do. Much easier than telling a story or creating strong characters, or good design. which few if any video games do well if at all anyway. It's a lot like those folks in early CG days who were after "realism" instead of character. This is why a little hopping lamp ran roughshod over those techies after "realism" in the mid eighties. And it still holds true today.

Chris Sobieniak said...

I blame the #Gamergate culture.

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