Civilian massacring game Hatred courts controversy, gets it
Epic requested its logo be removed from the trailer.
Earlier today, Polish developer Destructive Creations announced an isometric shooter in which you violently slaughter droves of civilians for no other reason than that your character is full of hate. It's called Hatred and it looks like this:
It's not hard to see why this might upset folks, but Destructive Creations CEO Jarosław Zieliński isn't sweating it and seems pleased with the fervour it's inspired.
"The world's response to our trailer I can describe only by using OMFG words," Zieliński said in an e-mail exchange with Eurogamer. "I knew it will do some mess around because of the game's theme, but what is happening is beyond our imagination. I'm constantly writing right now a s***load of responses for fan mails. Yes, fans! We receive a tons of supportive e-mails and it totally blows me away, [I] didn't expect this. And to all of those people: We won't disappoint you!"
When asked if he was second-guessing that the content had crossed a line, he responded, "No, I don't think the content has gone too far. It's just shooting virtual characters and if anybody has a problem with distinguishing reality from a game, he should turn off his computer and go for a long walk. :) We do what you can find in so many titles, we just don't want justify it. If someone doesn't like the game and feels disgusted with its content, he doesn't have to play it - plain and simple. It's definitely not game for everyone."
It's also not a game for Epic, which has requested Destructive Creations remove the Unreal Engine 4 logo from its trailer.
"Epic Games isn't involved in this project," the developer said in a statement to Eurogamer. "Unreal Engine 4 is available to the general public for use 'for any lawful purpose,' and we explicitly don't exert any sort of creative control or censorship over projects. However, the video is using the trademarked Unreal Engine 4 logo without permission from Epic, and we've asked for the removal of our logo from all marketing associated with this product."
Destructive Creations has acquiesced to Epic's request and Zieliński issued Eurogamer the following response on the matter:
"They have all their rights to do it. They've contacted me in a friendly tone, I removed it from YouTube, will remove from the press version of our trailer ASAP and everyone is happy. It was actually my lack of knowledge - in the past I was working on the titles (and trailers) with another type of Unreal licence than the present EULA one. It was obvious for me that you put Unreal logo at the beginning of video, for advertising its greatness (no irony!) and it's quite mandatory. Looks like I was wrong. :)"
For more on Destructive Creation's philosophy, the developer explained Hatred's origins in its announcement:
"In times where a lot of games are heading to be polite, colorful, politically correct and trying to be some kind of higher art, rather than just an entertainment, [we] wanted to create something against trends. Something different, something that could give the player a pure gaming pleasure. This is how the idea of Hatred - the team's first game, was born."
"Here comes our game, which takes no prisoners and makes no excuses," it added on its official site. "We say 'yes, it is a game about killing people' and the only reason of the antagonist doing that sick stuff is his deep-rooted hatred. Player has to ask himself what can push any human being to mass-murder. We provoke this question using new Unreal Engine 4, pushing its physics (or rather PhysX) systems to the limits and trying to make the visuals as good as possible."
"Just don't try this at home and don't take it too seriously, it's just a game. :)"