Game makers at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) went for the jugular.
That is not just a metaphor about the competitive spirit of the video game industry at its annual trade show this past week. There were also actual depictions of throats being ripped out — as well as spleens, spines, hearts and testicles — in some of the goriest scenes ever shown off at E3.
Developers of such titles as Bloodborne, Let It Die, Mortal Kombat X, Dead Island 2 and Dying Light were not shy about harnessing the high-powered graphical capabilities of the latest generation of consoles to portray more realistic decapitations, dismemberments and other grisliness.
Photo: AFP
Why the apparent boost in high-definition gross-outs?
“I think in the early years of a console launch, you have the so-called early adopters and hardcore fan base,” said Shawn Layden, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, which launched the PlayStation 4 in November last year. “I think they look for the latest gaming experience that takes them to another level from where they’ve been before, and a lot of our publishing partners are pursuing the new, most impactful experience for gamers.”
The parade of carnage began on Monday at Microsoft’s presentation when the creators of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare demonstrated a level in which a character’s arm is ripped off while attempting to sabotage an enemy aircraft in South Korea. Michael Condrey, cofounder of Advanced Warfare developer Sledgehammer Games, later maintained the amputation was not only intended to shock.
Photo: AFP
“We know that war is terrifying,” Condrey said. “The military advisers that we work with talk about the horrors of war. Call of Duty isn’t just about gratuitous violence. The scene that you saw in Seoul at the Microsoft press conference, that’s an impactful story moment. The loss of the arm is really part of the narrative. We showed that for a particular storytelling reason.”
Other slaughter on display at E3 included a first-person perspective of a decapitation in a demo of the French Revolution-set Assassin’s Creed: Unity and several bone-crushing new moves in Mortal Kombat X, like extreme close-ups of characters snapping their opponents’ spines and manhandling their genitals.
“It seems, as time goes on, video games continue to become more violent, realistic and graphic,” said Brad Bushman, a communication and psychology professor at Ohio State University. “This is a disturbing trend. Unfortunately, I see no signs that it will stop. The research evidence clearly indicates that violent video games increase aggression in players, and can make them numb to the pain and suffering of others.”
Photo: Reuters
However, it was not merely blood and guts on display at E3 this year. The virtual horse that players will mount in the open-world action sequel Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has been programmed to spontaneously defecate. And in a creepy abandoned mental institution from the Victorian-era thriller The Order: 1886, there is not just blood smeared across the walls.
Game makers defend that gore aids the narrative, yet many believe a little goes a long way.
“For us, it’s more impactful if it’s done tastefully,” The Order game director Dana Jan said. “If you just throw blood all over the place, it’s meaningless... We have to look at what we think is disturbing or scary and figure out how to do that masterfully without going too over the top.”
E3 was not completely consumed with bloodshed. This year’s show featured a plethora of non-bloody, artsy games that attracted an unprecedented amount of attention. Still, the biggest games at E3 are usually the most hardcore.
While violence has long been part of gaming history, and these gory titles are destined to be restricted to adult buyers by the industry’s rating board, such footage received visceral reactions from even the most seasoned gamers this year.
“E3 2014, taken as a whole, doesn’t feel as obsessed with violence as past shows,” wrote Chris Plante, cofounder at the gaming site Polygon.
That was before he cut the show’s most graphic violence into a one-minute video.
“The supercut is dense with blood, organs and unrecognizable viscera,” Plante wrote. “It’s strange how these things can wash over you but make an impact when taken together. These conferences can be a bit desensitizing.”
Additional reporting by Ryan Pearson
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS