Bleszinski on the role of violence in Epic's Games

In an interview with the BBC, Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski says that his company does not implement graphic violence because they are “strange sadistic people." Rather, he sees the violence in the company's mature-rated games as "cartoon-like" much like the classic Looney Tunes cartoons. Instead of anvils and dynamite, gamers use Lancer assault rifles and grenades.

"The majority of what we implement into the game we do for feedback and interactivity, not because we're strange sadistic people who want to see how much blood we can put on the screen when you shoot one of the lizard creatures,” Bleszinski told the BBC’s Interview program.

"We do it to let the player know you did in fact succeed, that you are hitting a target and you need that kind of feedback in order to create what is a successful interactive experience," he said.

Bleszinski added that much of the more graphical content that makes it intoi the company's games is heavily vetted:

"We have an internal moral compass where we will decide, 'No that's a little bit too much,' or we need to cut the violence back a little bit," he explained. The company also wants to explore “interesting themes about loss and the actual prices of war.”

You can check out the entire interview BBC by way of Local Wire.