Violence and a gritty setting don't make a game more mature, said Frictional Games studio head Thomas Grip in an interview with BeefJack.
The Amnesia creator spoke with the publication about problematic concepts in gaming today. Too often do games stab at a mature setting with gore and curse words, says Grip, but this just makes it "even more childish." According to Grip, games hardly even branch out.
"Take just about any big game release and the core concepts of that game is something that a 10-year-old can enjoy," Grip said.
"That means that just about any games that I can enjoy today would also have been enjoyed by my 10-year-old self. But when you look at film, movies, music, etc., there are tons of stuff which I like today that my 10-year-old self would not ... There is nothing wrong with having games that are ageless. But when just about every game released is like this, I think it is a sign that something is wrong."
Grip also mentioned that Frictional's own Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Penumbra: Overture suffer from this problem as well. "The games are mainly about hiding from monsters and solving puzzles, so I can't claim that their cores are very mature," said Grip. But the studio head wants to achieve something more meaningful in future titles.
"For our next game, we want to have more thought behind everything that happens, and tie things together so if the player thinks something more about it, it will take things a step further," Grip said. "So we want these extra layers to the gameplay that will really get below the skin of the player."