Kojima wants realistic violence

By Robert Purchese Published 4 January, 2008

Likes facial disfiguration.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima believes violence in games should be more realistic, in order that we can see the consequences of our actions.

He was talking to other faces from the industry in Japanese magazine Famitsu (translated by Develop), including Assassin's Creed producer Jade Raymond.

"I don't think there are many games that tackle violence head on," said Kojima, responding Raymond's probing. "When you hit someone or inflict pain, faces get disfigured, for example, and I want to make games that show that sort of thing."

"If you don't see the pain, you can't understand what you've done, and you'll pass through battles without taking responsibility for your actions. I don't want to ignore that. I want players to think, even if it's just a little, about what violence and war are."

Understandably, then, it is one area Kojima is keen to explore in Metal Gear Solid 4, which will attempt to explore the nature of war and how it affects us human people.

We can't imagine the BBFC likes the sound of this next-generation physics, though, even if it might make make violence less sensationalist and more consequential.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • Tejstar #1 4 years ago

    This will rile the Daily Mail brigade!

  • L42yB #2 4 years ago

    Wow... I'd love to see this guy and Jack Thompson having it out :)

    Looking forward to see what comes from this tho...

  • asphaltcowboy #3 4 years ago

    But surely this will make things worse? Most people know they're just playing a game and therefore don't have to take responsibility for their actions... as soon as they turn off the console, said disfigured character is gone.

  • Wyrm #4 4 years ago

    Well, I like the idea, but Soldier of Fortune didn't do anything when peoples corpses didn't just flash and vanish.

    Fact is some people are violent and don't give a shit about other people. This always has and always will be the case.

  • DanWhitehead #5 4 years ago

    But surely this will make things worse? Most people know they're just playing a game and therefore don't have to take responsibility for their actions... as soon as they turn off the console, said disfigured character is gone.

    Indeed. Not to mention the fact that games would have to evolve past the notion of rewarding players for violent acts, either with points or tangible gameplay benefits. I suspect the idea is too deeply ingrained in the gaming DNA for such a change to really happen. Even in the pompously post-modern world of Metal Gear, I'm not sure how you'd stop players taking pleasure in helping Snake snap necks.

    BioShock perhaps comes closest, with the Little Sisters, but you're still gunning down hundreds of Splicers along the way without a second thought.

  • monkie_king #6 4 years ago

    If he's going to make games where you're a soldier in a warzone and you have to kill enemies to progress, then the player isn't really the one responsible for killing enemies. So you won't really experience the consequences of your own actions, but those of the actions of the designer of the game, who chose to make a game built around violence and ultra-realistic bodily trauma.

    And that leads you either into Manhunt territory, or into indescribably tedious philosophy-lite discussions about morality and the nature of free will -- the latter certainly sounds like an MGS game to me.

  • L42yB #7 4 years ago

    @asphaltcowboy - I don't think it will make anything worse, other than the political war going on about video game violence in general...

    I don't think that making the violence realistic will make people "feel more responsible for their actions". But I do think it will look cool...

    /start rant

    And anyway, it is still very debatable whether violence in games and media encourage or discourage violence in people. It is a known and accepted fact that some people have a greater tendency to be violent than others.

    One side of the fence believes that if you are inherently violent then playing violent games will make you even more violent as you become decensitised to what you are doing. The other side says that playing violent games could act as a release and infact make violent people less likely to be violent in real life. No-one has been able to prove *anything* on either side of this argument...

    /end rant

    Apologies, I don't know what came over me there...

  • Velios #8 4 years ago

    Oh god! Are gamers to feel remorseful while playing the likes of COD4? "Oh no I killed 20 people, I saw the pain on their faces - how will their widows and children cope without the fathers that I just gunned down with my new 50 Cal sniper rifle???"

    FFS - it's a game, it's not real.

  • seasidebaz #9 4 years ago

    i see one problem...

    this is metal gear solid we're talking about, you shouldnt NEED to kill people. apart from the bosses. this is a game about sneaking around!

    and i think everyone's with me on the fact that the only time vg violence has affected me is with aeris on ff7... i really thought that i was uncontrollably going to chop her into bits!

  • jlaakso #10 4 years ago

    I don't want my violence too realistic. COD4 is close to being too aggressive - I don't like to play it for a long stretch at a time.

    Kojima's own games are some of the worst aggressors though. You pretend you're shooting real-life guns at real people, and all they do is blink and vanish, leaving behind a floating box of goods.

  • dsmx #11 4 years ago

    Technically you don't need to kill anyone not even the bosses in MGS2 and 3

  • WinduCleaner #12 4 years ago

    Faces that disfigure sounds like a heavey metal band album...

  • kangarootoo #13 4 years ago

    A noble sentiment perhaps, but I can't see it working for a second.

    Someone mentioned Bioshock and the part the little sisters play in the game. They are innocents, presente to you in a helpless state, and if you harvest them you feel bad. You don't need to see the process to feel bad, and the reason is because its not the picture of violence that makes you feel bad but the knowledge of what you have done to an innocent.

    Most games don't give the same character to the bad guys. They are faceless henchmen. You don't feel bad about killing them because not one single part of the game gives them any worth in the eyeys of the player. You could watch depictions of violence all day and all night, but it would STIL not make you feel "the consequences" of what you are doing because the game is not presenting any consequences. You might as well watch someone hit a sock with a stick and try and emote with that.

    Now obviously not all games are made this way.... but the MGS games certainly are.

    Almost every bad guy in the MGS games is either a faceless goon or an evil f*ck whose absence would benefit the world as a whole. Showing detailed violence in MGS games as they stand currently would not achieve the aims Hideo describes unless he also gives the enemies some emotional worth to the player. Currently they don't have that, so I would expect the result to be nothing more than is already seen in ultra violent games; i.e. a degree of titilation, Soldier of Fortune style ("wow, his head came off" etc).

  • kangarootoo #14 4 years ago

    "FFS - it's a game, it's not real."

    Way to miss the point, and also convenietly avoid any debate whatsoever. I think there might be a thread about ponies somewhere if you search for it.

  • Nithron #15 4 years ago

    The man does, however, have a point. It's vaguely annoying in games, and in movies, when you shoot somebody and they just fall over, instantly and silently dying.

    COD4 made some progress in this area by having some enemies fall to the floor and writhe around until you shot them again, but there was still a remarkable lack of bleeding going on.

  • JJrabbit #16 4 years ago

    Some games would suit it, for atmospheric content, others won't. Therefore, I'm for it, if not for the same reasons as "make the player feel guilty" for the sake of it. The reason Manhunt got such criticism is because the concept of murdering in a gruesome manner was the first thing the developers thought of and then placed it into some sort of context. Working the other way round would create a better game. For example, a Mafia style game, where violence is integral to the plot (and possibly character development) would suit nicely to have realistic violence. IMO anyway :)
    Having said that, you know once an engine has been developed, games will include it just because they can.

  • Shanucore #17 4 years ago

    @kangarootoo: totally agree with you, all good points.

    Gamers - also readers, movie goers, etc. - will only care about what happens to or is inflicted upon a character if they care about that character. Gasp, shock, etc. It would be quite easy to play with these sorts of sensibilities and make a deeply unsettling gaming experience out of it - and if your characters and story are good enough I'm sure people will persevere. As a medium gaming has so much promise, but it's so rare to see it reach beyond shoot, kill, laugh, move on (vary depending on yer genre of choice).

  • chicknstu #18 4 years ago

    He should check out 'Riddick'. It's so vicious. First time I beat someone up in it, I dropped the controller, looked at my hands, and screamed "WHAT HAVE I DONE????" to the heavens.

  • NickNack #19 4 years ago

    There is a reason why they don't show gruesome killings on the news, it's deeply disturbing and stays in the mind for ever. We don't need games to show us how horrific war is. I've seen plenty of gruesome things done in war times on various websites and late night documentries and the public really don't need to see that stuff as some people wouldn't be able to handle it. You don't need to see a man getting tortured or women being killed to understand it. And the fact is kids will play these games, when I play COD4 online half of the players sound like they are about 12 years old.

  • Canyarion #20 4 years ago

    Reminds me of Steven Spielberg's effort in Saving Private Ryan. And the hordes of 12 year olds who cheered at all the realistic violence.

    =(

  • VMerken #21 4 years ago

    Well, if Kojima does it the way Mikami did it in Resident Evil 4 (as in: acid on Leon's face by Novistador, HUNK's Neck Breaker move), then I'm all for it :). Them's video games after all, unreal food for the brain, not the real thing.

  • Moribundman #22 4 years ago

    I for one would certainly respond to Jade Raymond's probing.

  • kangarootoo #23 4 years ago

    @Arbiter

    "Errr wtf. If a character is a "bad" guy, its stands to reason they do "bad" things!"

    I think it is you who misses the points, both mine and Kojima's. Tbh you seem to be talking about something else entirely in an effort to disagree with me and have an argument.

    In real war there is no such thing as a a stereotypical "bad guy", because everyone has an agenda and defining who is right and wrong. In video games such as MGS there is clearly a good side and a bad side.

    In this way it differs from real life. There are squaddies out there who are downright nasty people. There were soldiers fighting for Saddam (for example) who were fathers and husbands who cared about their families and communities (the first Austin Powers made the same point in its own way). They just happened to be on the wrong side, from our point of view (cue JSPOOLE appearing and calling me a liberal by way of an insult ;) ).

    I don't want to side track the discussion too much with current politics 'cos its not core to the point I am making. I'm sure you can see how the clone enemies in most video games are nothing like real people in real wars, and therefore killing them (however graphically) cannot convey the same horror.

    Now Hideo is on about wishing to draw parallels between real war and video games war. I suggested this was not possible if your "bad guys" were presented in an artificial way such that does not allow the player to connect with them.

    "Kojima's thinking is that showing them in discomfort would act as an additional moral/emotional disincentive to using (quick and easy) lethal force tactics"

    If that is all he would do, I believe his efforts would fail. My point all along is that a moral/emotional incentive can only work when morals and emotions are part of the picture. In the case of the "bad guys" of previous MGS games (along with most other games out there) they simply are not. The game presents such clear good and bad stereo types that it effectively makes the moral and emotional decisions for the player (these are clearly the "bad guys", they have no redeeming features, so its ok to kill them, don't worry about it) and so no amount of graphical violence is going to make the player care about them.

    I cared about the little sisters in Bioshock, and reloaded a save after harvesting the first one because I genuinely felt bad. I didn't see the act, I didn't see any violence or physical harm, but I didn't need to because emotion and morality (that you also have defined as crucial; on that we agree), were clearly centre stage.

    That is the point.
    Edited by 2 at 04/01/08 @ 17:27

  • space_ace #24 4 years ago

    hey kojima, there is a disfigured, "concave" console you should check out and port mgs4 to :)

  • CaoSlayer #25 4 years ago

    Actually, Kojima did it already, the cure system of metal gear solid 3 is that more or less..

    I mean that sometimes snake broken his bones or was burnt and such and you had to manually cure yourself, the game ever included an option to see the list of surgery you have suffered in the game.
    Sadly the cure system was more annoying than useful and lacked realism how you where able to cure yourself in the middle of a battle. Also Kojima planned to show you the list of injures at the game´s end so you could realize than playing James Bond is not a roses garden.

    About the consequences of killing people there was The Sorrow but that is everything but realist.

  • Bluetooth #26 4 years ago

    Kojima and Jade will make a great couple.

    For making games, you sickos!



    sex games.

  • 3william56 #27 4 years ago

    I think there should be Austin Powers type cut scenes every time you off a faceless goon, showing Mrs Henchman preparing a dinner that will never be eaten, and Little Henchman Jr standing tearfully at the end of the drive, clutching a football, waiting for daddy to come home from a long hard day carrying a machinegun about in an aimless fashion.

    There's your empathy right there.