Answers by: Jeramy Cooke (BIA HH Director)
1) BIA has always been a violent series, mostly because of the topic it's covering. Will BIA HH follow the same path?
BiA
HH will continue to show the horrors of war be they physical gore or
mental trauma. We feel it's important to treat the subject with respect
but at the same time help people feel the intensity of the violence.
War is at its core a violent act and gore is something that goes with
the territory.
2) We all have in mind the incredible
opening scene in Saving Private Ryan and BIA has always tried to be
very realistic. How did you reach a decision for the level of gore that
you wanted in the game?
Really it was a very
straightforward decision. Each area of the game that depicts violence
is specifically to illustrate an important story point or convey the
terrible nature of war. We never really ask ourselves about the "Gore
Level" instead we focus on the drama and purpose of the scene or game
system. If gore happens to be a part of that experience then so be it.
3) What is the biggest technical challenge that you had to face during the development of the new gore system?
The
main challenge was making sure the physics was fast enough on each of
the different platforms. Since each platform has different performance
characteristics we had to tune the simulations to match. As well it was
a challenge dealing with the additional memory required to break apart
different enemy types in so many ways.
4) Finally, did you cut some of the gore features you planned on implementing in the game originally?
Actually
the gore system landed a fair bit ahead of where we had originally
planned. Since our game is not about gore we generally wanted to keep
it in the background and thus we didn't plan on spending big into the
tech. However there were a number of features the team promoted
internally such as headshot specific gore and dripping blood on walls
that weren't in the original plan.