Upcoming exclusive is unquestionably a violent and mature game. But the role-playing game's depiction of violence is not gratuitous, according to director Hidetaka Miyazaki. In a new interview, the veteran developer said when you kill enemies and watch their blood splatter, it's done in more of an "artistic way than a violent or gruesome way."
“I feel like nobody will believe me when I say this, but I'm a tasteful man and I like to adjust things accordingly; there was very careful management of the boundaries of what is shown," he told . “Things like what color the blood would be--we had to really adjust the tone of the red that we were using."
"There were many things that needed to be toned down" -- Miyazaki
"But also when creatures are attacked and blood is spilling everywhere, it's adjusted so that it's expressed in more of an artistic way than a violent or gruesome way; it's symbolic," Miyazaki added. "It's expressed in the way that a painting would show something, not a photorealistic representation. That maintains a sense of terror without being gratuitous."
Miyazaki also reveals that, over the course of Bloodborne's multi-year development, creator From Software (,) had to "tone down" certain elements so that the game wouldn't be "distasteful."
"There were many things that needed to be toned down," he said. "Bloodborne is set in a nightmarish world, and that sense of horror needed to be expressed, so there are always going to be things that when first created were rather too over-the-top. Where do you set the limitations of what you show visually?"
"It's something that I had to exercise quite a lot throughout the project," Miyazaki added. "I wanted to take a step into that more sinister, gruesome setting and environment compared to the Souls series, but then you've always got to be careful of how far you step into it; that's something that Sony has helped with. We did discuss what the right boundaries were, what would be too distasteful."
In the United States, Bloodborne is by the Entertainment Software Rating Board for its depictions of blood and gore, as well as general violence. The game's ratings summary says: "Battles are accompanied by realistic gunfire, impact sounds, and large blood-splatter effects. Some sequences depict instances of blood and gore: a ghost holding its own severed head; a creature ripping its limbs to attack characters; a partial view of a beheading."
, Bloodborne is now exclusively for PS4. For more, check out some of our favorite images from the game in the gallery below.