Dennis Mejillones, the character artist for Starfield, has shared details about why gore was absent in the game during the interview with KIWI TALKZ, via GameSpot.
Known for being a character artist for many Bethesda titles, from Fallout 4, Skyrim, and recently, Starfield, Dennis Mejillones has discussed why gore didn’t make it into the final cut during his interview with KIWI TALKZ. To kick off the discussion, Mejillones explained how much goes into gore from a technical perspective as it includes things like designing how the helmet would be cut, adding meat caps where the head gets cut, and many more.
Mejillones goes into more detail about how the team has built a system for the gore feature but became a “big rat nest” as there were too many things to account for. One of the issues they ran into was the advanced character creator, as it was hard to add gore for Starfield due to the fact players can expand the character’s body size. But another reason why it wasn’t added was because gore didn’t fit thematically into the game. Mejilones explained how the feature was stylized for Fallout 4 as part of ‘tongue-in-cheek humour’, while Starfield is more lo-fi and realistic. He has also mentioned how The Expanse from Star Trek inspired the team during development.
As Mejilones concludes that gore was removed from Starfield because of technical overhead costs and not fitting into the theme, he was asked about ID Software, the creators behind the DOOM franchise, involvement with the assistance of adding gore. He responded, “They helped out a lot, but it just wasn’t a good fit for the game”.
Being released in September 2023, Starfield crossed 15 million players a few months ago and released the Shattered Space expansion in September 2024. For those interested, the game is available on PC via Steam and Microsoft Store, and Xbox Series X|S.
