Wolfenstein II and Violence in Games: An Interview with Creative Director Jens Matthies
Heading into GDC this year, a debate almost as old as videogames themselves was once again dragged into the spotlight: do videogames cause violence in real life? In the aftermath of the recent shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that claimed the lives of 17 students, fingers have been pointing wildly in all directions in search of a cause, reigniting the discussion around the potential social harm of consuming violent entertainment. What are our responsibilities as creators? If we choose to use violence as a narrative device, does it serve a purpose? Must it serve a purpose? How do we negotiate the reality of our impact? These are questions we must ask as society continues to deal with the implications of mass media. With this in mind, I approached the creative director of the Wolfenstein series Jens Matthies to talk about violence in videogames—including the recent appearance of Wolfenstein II on Not-My-President Trump’s shit list. Here’s what he had to say.
Paste: Recently I wrote that Wolfenstein is somewhat a contradiction in that it asks us to value human life enough to understand that Nazis are an acceptable target for violence, but also be desensitized enough to depictions of human suffering to enjoy committing acts of violence in the game. With that in mind, do you ever feel that the message of Wolfenstein is lost on your audience?
Jens Matthies: When it comes to our philosophy in making the game, we layer in a lot of depth that’s not obvious from just a cursory overview. At the surface level, the game is just this crazy action romp, over the top, and for me at least, that’s a really fun time in terms of a game. But then, inside of that is also a ton of stuff that is a lot more intimate and a lot more personal and at least to us feels very meaningful. But that doesn’t mean you have to engage at that level. You could just engage at the action role level, if you want. We’re not in the business of judging our players. You can engage to the level you feel that you’re interested in. I think there is such a juxtaposition, as you mentioned, that the game is anti-Nazi.
Paste: So even if you’re not judging the player, on some level you’ve somewhat stated a moral conviction in that, the Nazis are the bad guys and they are an acceptable target.
Matthies: Right, and that is the deeper problem of… I think that’s very core to the human experience. Because we live in this incredibly strange state that, [ourselves] and the people we care about are incredibly vulnerable in the world. For example my mother could walk into traffic tomorrow and actually die a really painful death. That’s in the possibility space for being human. But it doesn’t feel like it should be. It’s incredibly weird that that’s the case. And if you read about the atrocities that people have suffered historically and in present day, it’s mind boggling. It doesn’t feel like it’s something that belongs in the world. And still, if you are faced with this kind of threat and you’re actually in a state [with real government] oppression, like they’re murdering people, you need to sort of try and do something about that and you have to engage them in this sort of inhumaneness. And I saw this movie, on the plane, The Death of Stalin. Fantastic movie. It’s these kinds of atrocities that are like… so it’s some guy here, he has a death list from Stalin. Here are all the people you need to kill. He has a death squad, he says here’s the list, shoot the wife first but make sure the target sees it. So like, that actually happened. Maybe not exactly how it was like in the movie, but that kind of thing has happened and it happens all the time. To me, that’s a source of fascination. How can we be in this state where on the one hand we have this possibility space of being really civilized and engaged and having a really human experience together and at the same time we’re facing this endless brutality? And I think when push comes to shove and you’re really in that conflict then you have to navigate that space. And I think that’s a big part of what the game is about.
Paste: I think I can kinda see what you’re saying, that there’s a duality in our morality on an individual level and how that can coexist with the impact of the game. Do you feel that depictions of violence in entertainment or participatory violence in games can ever serve a practical or moral purpose?
Matthies: Yeah of course. For sure.
Paste: Do you feel for instance that that the violence towards Nazis in Wolfenstein and the depictions of the violence towards them really teaches anybody that the Nazis are bad guys? For example, in one of the opening sequences you see Frau Engle playing with a decapitated head and one of the guys in power armor stomps on it. That’s really extreme. Is it necessary to go that extreme to make your point? Do you know what I mean? If the point is that these Nazis are terrible people, that’s great, you can make that point, but when you show someone’s head getting stomped on, is that entirely necessary to illustrate your point that way or are you just kind of torturing your audience? You want them to care about these characters and you’re making them watch this terrible stuff to make your point but…is it necessary to making your point?
Matthies: There is nothing in the game that is necessary, in my opinion. That’s just my opinion. We don’t waste time doing stuff that doesn’t contribute to the whole. It’s incredibly time consuming to do anything. That scene is one of the hardest scenes to record and put together because it’s very long and there’s like eleven people in the room, and we do these amazing long takes so it’s like two takes for the whole thing. And the logistics and the rehearsals and the process of getting everything to the point where you can record it, is super time consuming and then afterwards we’ll find out that the file is too big to open because we’ve never recorded something that big before…so we don’t do stuff like, wouldn’t it be fun if…? …Well, sometimes we do do that…but we can do something for the purpose of it being entertaining or engaging but we don’t do things randomly, it does have purpose. So in the case of the head stomp, there are two reasons: one of them is that later on in the game you need to recover the body, so it was problematic to have the head in that sense, but then there’s the other moment of bringing the body with them when they leave. I thought that would just be too…it wouldn’t feel right handling the head separately. Would he put it on top of her? …Like, it would turn it into…like, you want this solemn moment of her just bringing the body back, and then dealing with this additional piece of gore that doesn’t feel right…that’s why the head was stomped, and there’s a reason for all of these things happening. In aggregate, yes, it’s very extreme, and I understand if people don’t play at that point. But it all serves a purpose. And the purpose is not necessarily the point.
Paste: I think what I’m kind of getting is that, you know, from my perspective, you guys are seeking to make a point, where you’re more saying, the elements of the narrative we put together are more like, we’re trying to get somewhere. It’s hard not to interpret intent at a time like this [in American politics], when we have to reiterate that Nazis are the bad guys. Does that ever get surreal for you, that we’re having this debate again, that we came back around to having to teach people that Nazis are bad? Because that’s kind of what we’re dealing with over here in the United States.
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