DICE on why you can't shoot civilians in Battlefield 3: "people will do bad"

Battlefield 3 - desert warfare

You won't be able to kill civilians in Battlefield 3. Executive producer Patrick Bach explains why in an interview with RPS , in which he voices his worries that players given the choice to commit violent crimes against virtual innocents will more often take the darker path.

“If you put the player in front of a choice where they can do good things or bad things, they will do bad things, go dark side," says Bach, "because people think it's cool to be naughty, they won't be caught..."

“In a game where it's more authentic, when you have a gun in your hand and a child in front of you what would happen? Well the player would probably shoot that child,” he adds.

“We would be the ones to be blamed. We have to build our experiences so we don't put the player in experiences where they can do bad things.”

It's a very different approach to that shown by Infinity Ward when they designed the controversial "No Russian" mission in Modern Warfare 2, which gave players the opportunity to mow down innocent civilians in an airport.

“Me personally, I'm trying to stay away from civilians in games like BF because I think people will do bad," Bach continues. "I don't want to see videos on the internet where people shoot civilians. That's something I will sanitise by removing that feature from the game.”

Bach also stresses that DICE's decision to exclude civilians from Battlefield 3 doesn't mean that they aren't taking their depiction of war seriously. Instead, they're trying to pursue a more adult sense of authenticity.

“We are trying to do something that is more mature. Mature not being gore –some people confuse the two. That's childish actually, to want more blood,” he says.

Battlefield is out on October 25 in the US, October 27 in Australia and October 28 in Europe.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.

Latest in FPS
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
Starfield's companion robot giving a thumbs-up
Former Bethesda dev who quit Starfield to go solo says it's 'much less stressful as an indie' without daily meetings or 'office politics': it's 'very refreshing to just care about the game'
A crew of prospectors in Wildgate, featuring a robot, a rabbit man, and a small aquatic creature in a combination mech/aquarium.
Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's new company is putting Sea of Thieves-style shenanigans in space with a new crew-based shooter
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Fragpunk
Somebody finally figured out casual Counter-Strike
Latest in News
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'