Skip to main content

Kojima wants realistic violence

Likes facial disfiguration.

Dark blue icons of video game controllers on a light blue background
Image credit: Eurogamer

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.

Read this next