Dev defends Dead Island child violence

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 23 March, 2011

"This happens in a realistic setting."

The child violence depicted in the Dead Island trailer, below, is not exploitative, Deep Silver has insisted.

The Dead Island trailer shows a reverse-time account of a young girl on a tropical holiday island being torn away from her parents, become a zombie and eventually flung out of a window to her death.

Some have labelled the scene exploitative. Others have accused it of trading on a taboo. Valve writer Erik Wolpaw told Eurogamer it's "unpleasant in a way that makes it difficult to watch".. But for Deep Silver producer Sebastian Reichert, child violence is a part of the realistic setting developer Techland is trying to create.

"I'm feeling sad for the people who don't see that in this trailer are also 25 regular people dead," he said. "They're running around and trying to eat your brains, but they're still dead.

"Killing people in general is a taboo. So as soon as you go to the zombie topic, you have to face the fact you will kill people, else it won't work. So yes, we also have a kid in there. But I don't see we exploited this in any way, like we just splattered her over the ground or some weird s**t like that.

"She fell out of a tall building at the beginning – or at the end. We took good care that we didn't overdo it. It's not a gooey pump or something. We're not doing this for the showing of gore and splatter.

"Of course we're aware that if this was another character it would have another feeling. But in the end, the other people are also dead. This is what happens in a realistic setting."

Dead Island, a first-person open world role-playing game set on a tropical island, was relatively unknown before Deep Silver released what some consider to be one of the greatest video game trailers ever last month.

Reichert has already countered accusations that the trailer does not accurately reflect the game it promotes.

He confirmed that while child zombies were OK for the trailer, their inclusion in the game itself was a step too far.

"Because you have problems with rights and ESRB," he explained. "It wouldn't be good for age ratings."

But there's another reason why Dead Island is free from child zombies.

"We were thinking about it to implement it. But what are the advantages of a kid zombie who has no reach? He's weaker. Basically from a gameplay perspective, it's only there to shock people. The game is drastic enough the way it is. We're flying enough intestines and limbs around.

"We can happily say the game is brutal enough. We don't need kids in there."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DwarfyP #1 1 year ago

    I don't get why people got so weird about this video, its only a video game version (with zombies) of the THINK Road Safety TV advert - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS5f73EHRhA

  • LazyNinjaUk #2 1 year ago

    I agree with Reichert, the trailer wasn't as explotative as many people are saying. They could have made it gratuitously gorey but they didn't, I personally think they did a very tasteful job and as a result the whole trailer is very emotional and moving.

  • PearOfAnguish #3 1 year ago

    A fair point. The advert did make me more aware of the dangers of zombies. Next time I'm on a tropical island I'll be keeping a sharp eye out for the undead, in addition to killing my speed and not letting friends drive drunk.

  • thebuttonz #4 1 year ago

    "some have labelled the scene exploitative"

    Who has, exactly? All the press I have seen has been balanced and fairly adult about this.

    Feels like were trying to whip up controversy where it doesn't exist. Sure it's a tough watch, but that's the point. It want shown half time at the Superbowl, or during CBeebies. ( or whatever the ITV equivalent is lol ).

  • MojoDex #5 1 year ago

    yes realistic with zombies!

  • DreadedWalrus #6 1 year ago

    This is what happens in a realistic setting

    Zombies?

    Edit: Mojodeeeex!
    Edited by DreadedWalrus at 23/03/11 @ 09:14

  • Octoroc #7 1 year ago

    Will there be realistic dead children in the final product then? Realistically screaming and begging for help as they are devoured by the realistic zombies?

    So long as they keep it tasteful, it'll be just fine.


  • MaxiSleep #8 1 year ago

    Hardly any worse then Bioshock.....

  • MaxiSleep #9 1 year ago

    Hardly any worse then Bioshock.....

  • thedaveeyres #10 1 year ago

    I didn't think it was particularly exploitative until they started milking it for acres of copy such as this article...

  • Toothball #11 1 year ago

    Is this a fuss because it's about video games then? Because they've had child zombies in film and TV for quite some time now. Even the quintessential Zombie film, Night of the Living Dead, features a young girl who turns into a zombie who is then killed by one of the other characters. I guess interactivity makes all the difference?

    That said, the mechanical reasons not to include child zombies seem quite reasonable.

  • gav_and_the_gavster #12 1 year ago

    I think it's meant to be a little unpleasant to watch I'd be worried if someone found it pleasant. I can think of many examples in TV and film (The Walking Dead, *that* advert on TV etc) showing similar approaches without becoming exploitative. That trailer wrangled so much emotion from myself and my fellow devs and was a big discussion point when it got released, all of us heaping praise on it. Groundbreaking dare I say.

  • menage #13 1 year ago

    First off. who are these people actually complaining?? I only heard the Valve guy saying that it made him uncomfortable in a good way. Eugogamer is just like the tabloids lately. Stirring up shit which isn't there imo.

    Secondly. Selling your game on shit which isn't in the game made me lose interest right there. Dead Space did mutated kids and babies, what's the freaking problem?? Keep your game if it's going to be DR 2.5

  • The-Bodybuilder #14 1 year ago

    I came in here ready to rebuke this game and its developer having never seen the clip.
    After seeing it, I found it a very harrowing viewing.....yet found the video so well done it was hard not to like it.

    Dammit.

  • The-Bodybuilder #15 1 year ago

    As others asked, who is complaining?

  • actionfitz #16 1 year ago

    ""Because you have problems with rights and ESRB," he explained. "It wouldn't be good for age ratings."

    Erm somebody needs to play Deadspace 2...

    Children turned into necromorphs (not a huge leap from 'Zombie' if you ask me) that swarm after you like a pack of dogs? Check!

    Babies turned into necromorphs that crawl after you and explode? Check!

    Deadspace 2 is 18 Cert. I presume any other self respecting zombie game will be 18+ too.

    IMHO, people griping about the inclusion of a kid in the Dead Island trailer need to wise the fuck up.
    Remove the kid from the trailer and you have a nicely render video of generic people getting munched be zombies - something that has been done and over done many times before.

    The child in the video helps us make the connection that these people were a family, and thus by extension, the other zombies in the trailer were also mothers, fathers and daughters etc.
    It's handled quite tastefully imo. A trailer that could have been an exploitative gore-fest about zombies, is instead a short tale of tragedy.

  • PlugMonkey #17 1 year ago

    The video wasn't really a 'trailer' anyway (that usually being defined as a sequence of shots taken from the game or film itself). They don't need to justify it in terms of game content.

    It's a promotional film, and a really good one at that. I'm forever hearing people talk about the power of 'viral marketing', and rarely do I hear people comment on the fact that you need to put out something really high quality for it to work.

    A month ago, no-one was talking about this game and now everyone is, and it's all down to one brilliant short film. Hats off to the people who made it. How much do the marketing departments of the big publishers spend to create 1/8th of this buzz?

  • SAMagic #18 1 year ago

    This MURDER SIMULATOR is going to cause a whole generation of mindless young adults to target and kill CHILDREN - Jack Thompson told me that.

    (Ok, he didn't, but some berk will say this in the mainstream media eventually)

  • Max_Powers #19 1 year ago

    Dev kicking up fuzz where there isn't any, so as to keep making headlines to promote their upcoming game.

    Sad thing is, it works

  • Max_Powers #20 1 year ago

    Dev kicking up fuzz where there isn't any, so as to keep making headlines to promote their upcoming game.

    Sad thing is, it works

  • metalangel #21 1 year ago

    Funny how it used to be okay. In Deus Ex, I remember shockprodding the kid in Hong Kong and throwing his body into the river.

  • YailBloor #22 1 year ago

    Random quote of the day: "It's not a gooey pump or something."

  • SbEguy #23 1 year ago

    "Some have labelled", "others have accused", yet the only named source is the guy from Valve who just said it was unpleasant and difficult to watch. Would you care to inform us as to who exactly these "some" and "others" are, or are you just going with the fox-style inventing of critics where there are none?

  • Phantom_Dynamite #24 1 year ago

    from the original Night of the living Dead in the 60's to the opening scenes of the Dawn of the Dead remake, and now on TV with the Walking Dead in the present day, there is always zombie children and violence, I see no reason why a mature game can't show this sort of content.

  • Marshall2008 #25 1 year ago

    It always felt odd that there are no kids in Liberty City. Takes the fun out of driving down the sidewalk....

  • darleysam #26 1 year ago

    Kinda plays out like that joke about killing X amount of (minority) and one clown.
    "why the clown?"
    "see, nobody cares about the (minorities)"

  • Gizzle #27 1 year ago

    Will someone please think of the zombie children?!

  • jake-123 #28 1 year ago

    some people are seriously so sensitive. get a life and stop moaning. if the parents of this child were beating her to death with a crowbar and a drill without her been a zombie and tryna bite them then yes maybe raise some concerns but jesus christ the girls a zombie so torch the bitch and throw her out the window (Y)

  • menage #29 1 year ago

    There is no sensitivity here, only created by people who like to create hype, like EG or the devs.

    I'm more sensitive that they're trying to sell me a game which obviously is nothing like the trailer if I read them correctly. Putting a kid in a bloody trailer and then not having the guts to do so in game feels lame. Obviously their setting isn't "realistic" after all.
    Edited by menage at 23/03/11 @ 16:15

  • evnewell #30 1 year ago

    Look, the trailer did exactly what it was intended to do: it got the market's attention. I'm not bothered by the use of a child in the context of a zombie trailer - they're right, realistically children would also die during the zombocalypse - so why not?

    One thing though: the child was the focal point. Yes, there were twenty something other dead/undead people to consider, but the trailer was built around the kid. Let's not scratch our heads here. There's a reason people are reacting to the kid... if they didn't react the trailer would have missed it's mark.

    Oh yeah, and you can have 'zombocalypse', internet. I can't keep it all to myself anymore.

    oops, turns out I didn't make 'zombocalypse' up. coulda sworn...
    Edited by evnewell at 23/03/11 @ 17:53

  • scoop #31 1 year ago

    Didn't bother me too much - I actually spent most of the time wondering why the guy looked good but the girl looked rubbish.

    This is a bit of a dumb thing to say though:

    "Of course we're aware that if this was another character it would have another feeling. But in the end, the other people are also dead. This is what happens in a realistic setting."

    Yes, zombies are real.