Speaking to the Official PlayStation Magazine, Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops animation director Dominique Drozdz has revealed how the explicitness in the upcoming FPS AAA title was deemed so realistic that they had to dial the gruesomeness down a notch.
He states:
“There were situations going too far. It was a a contextual kill where you were twisting the neck. It was too much. The throat cutting is nasty, but that was worse.”
Director Dave Anthony goes on to praise the game’s animation in general. He states:
“We’ve completely changed the way we do facial animation. Some of the stuff we’ve done with Gary Oldman’s character is amazing.”
How do you feel about this act of self-censorship? Have we reached the point in gaming where titles appear so realistic that their creators need to rein in how violence is depicted? Isn’t this game rated accordingly? Don’t people in other forms of entertainment get their necks twisted? Or are Treyarch doing the sensible thing by removing what some might consider unsettling or distasteful imagery?
A neck-twisting-less Call of Duty: Black Ops is out on November 9th.
Via: CVG
gazzagb
If Treyarch thought it was too much, then it probably was, I remember W@W being pretty gruesome.
Love the caption for the pic btw xD
rht992
yeah i was pretty shocked when i saw i’d blown someones head off :/
bajere
The flame thrower was harsh as well… best COD game to date though for me. Even had Keifer in it! lol
muse88_James
I thought the violence in WaW was excellent at depicting the horror of that war, hope they haven’t changed it too much.
cc_star
I think cutting someone’s throat would be graphic enough, twisting the knife would be unnecessary.
Self censorship when you know you’ve gone too far is the best kind
cc_star
Going further, if it was Infinity Ward or the Medal Of Honor team, what’s the betting they would have left it in for the publicity and then pulled it (or not) just before launch… Looking at you No Russian or Taliban
shields_t
To be fair, they are kind of courting contravercy/publicity themselves by mentioning the throat cutting.
DannyFantango
I like that they are acting with some restraint. The last thing I want is a sci-fi war shooter that just looks cheap and tawdry.
solidsteven
Yeah but killzone 3 has very gruelsome kills.
gazzagb
The KZ3 kills aren’t that bad imo.
Armonster9000
Sev stabbed some dude in the eye…. That’s pretty bad…
gazzagb
Yeah, but the dude is Helghast; not exactly a human. I know they used to be, but they don’t look like humans if you know what I mean.
BIGAL-1992
To be honest, as long as they don’t have something in there intentionally to kick up a fuss, I couldn’t care less.
zander14rfc
mortal kombat anyone?
cc_star
Games set in fantasy or science fiction can get away with more because it’s not real
zander14rfc
saying that neither is black ops, they are all just games
cc_star
Ripping a heart out of a game which features cartoon levels of violence and some non-human characters in a completely made-up universe is different to a game featuring human, in a real war, in a real place and graphically showing real violence of actually slitting someone throat, in a movie you passively watch such violence but the implications of a gamer actively doing the controlling of it is much stronger, and then with twisting of the neck, very different from pressing up, down & x to do a cartoon violence fatality
Flash
No such thing as ‘too much’. As long as it’s rated accordingly, I don’t see the problem…
3shirts
Yes there is. ‘Too much’ is, by definition, a problem.
If they want the game to be taken seriously the violence needs to be kept in context and moderated. It’s just like a film, if the violence is over the top and unnecessarily graphic without adding to the story or atmosphere it just comes across as attention grabbing and purile.
iAvernus
Well they know little kids will eventually get their hands on this, so they’re making sure parents (American parents) don’t turn around and sue them.
I know this example is not the same, but it’s worth mentioning. Years ago there was this band named “TOOL” that made a video that got approved to air on MTV, a channel that anyone can see, but the video was so disturbing to some parents, that enough complaints made MTV pull the video.
Games are rated accordingly, so IMO they really have no reason to sensor themselves. Maybe twisting necks is a bit much, but don’t we see allot worse in movies?
theberzerka
We do see alot worse in movies. I personally can’t see why they need to cut gore out when there’s films like the human caterpillar being made (Which i may add is gross but hard to stop watching once you’ve started).
gazzagb
Don’t you mean the human centipede? :P
theberzerka
That i do. :)
iBirch
Maybe we could have had the option?
ANTS101
They’ve done this simply because they know that a large percentage of the people who play COD games are below the age restriction enforced on the game. It is good to know that they are aware of their audience and in my opinion more realistic violence does not make a game better.
Games need to be fictional in some sense otherwise they would not be fun!
metamorph
This is another example of how Treyarch is destroying the Call of Duty franchise. Their future games will be nothing more than a shadow of the originals. Here’s a heads-up Dominique – this is not yours to spoil, go find yourself your own franchise. Oh, I forgot, you never had any – you make a living leeching off the work of other studios.
BIGAL-1992
Sheesh, cut the guy some slack. For all we know, they probably WANT to make their own IP, butare unable to until this game goes gold.
Ryan1991
To be honest, I think Treyarch have always been the better dev for CoD. And from what I’ve seen of Black Ops, it’s not exactly destroying the franchise but more like being made better.
ico
Yikes. That’s a tad bitter. Cut the guys some slack until the games comes out. I bet you’re going to buy it aren’t you?