Wargame: Airland Battle trailer details dynamic campaign
Halo 'Bootcamp' confirmed by Microsoft
Weekend PC download deals: Tomb Raider for $14
Game Dev Tycoon studio outlines future plans
Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced already has 350,000 words of new content
BioShock Infinite character 'highly altered' after talking with religious team members
by Steve Watts, Jan 21, 2013 4:30pm PSTThe name BioShock Infinite had us scratching our heads upon announcement, but it might just be the most appropriate title for the game. The more series creator Ken Levine talks about it, the more it seems to be about everything. It carries some religious themes along with its other big ideas, but Levine says some of those were "highly altered" after he took some time to talk with religious members of the studio.
"It's very important for me to understand a certain aspect of the religiosity of the world," Levine told Official PlayStation Magazine. "That's where I tune in as a non-religious person. ... I had some very valuable conversations. One of the characters in the game was highly altered based upon some very interesting conversations I had with people on the team who came from a very religious background, and I was able to understand they were kind of upset about something."
He says the team doesn't shy away from difficult subjects, but wants to treat them with the proper amount of weight. "I think that we had a similar conversation about Bioshock 1," he said. "It involves infanticide, I don't think there's a larger taboo in the world. There were people who were very nervous about that. We didn't have that because we thought it would be cool. My feeling was if it's not just there to be exploitive, if it's true to the story and you’re telling something that you think is honest, then everything has a place."
Levine says this doesn't mean the story has changed, just refined. "What I said to them was, 'I'm not going to change anything to get your approval, but I think I understand what you're saying and I think I can do something that's going to make the story better, based on what you said.' So I did that, and I'm grateful for them bringing in their perspective. The last thing I wanted to do was change something because it offends somebody, but the thing they pointed out was making it a lesser story."
Comments
BioShock Infinite creator Ken Levine says that he changed the portrayal of a character after speaking with religious team members who had concerns.
BioShock Infinite creator Ken Levine says that he changed the portrayal of a character after speaking with religious team members who had concerns. : Shacknews
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 75 replies.
Anything which makes religious characters or themes more realistic and not based on caricatures should improve a story. Otherwise you are just creating religious 'straw men' which prevents you from making decent criticisms or comments on the many negative (and some positive) aspects of religious belief and their followers. For example, if you were to have characters based on the Westborough Baptist Church and use that to criticise Christianity then that would be an absurd and ridiculous thing since they don't in any way represent the mainstream of that faith. Likewise characterising all Muslims as wannabe suicide bombers. On the other hand a nuanced criticism of, say the child abuse issues some church institutions have had or the lack of respect for women and sexual minorities in some widely practised faith communities would be done well providing the characters representing those views were not 'straw men' charicatures.
You must be logged in to post.