In light of a recently released trailer launched by Polish developer Destructive Creations regarding its upcoming top-down PC shooter, “ Hatred ”, Unreal Engine 4 developer Epic Games has requested that the logo for its graphical engine be removed from the game’s trailer, so as to remove confusion as to whether or not the developer is affiliated with the project.
The move from Epic Games is understandable, as the trailer for Hatred has been interpreted to essentially depict over a minute’s-worth of grimdark mass murdering and public shooting. While the Unreal Engine 4 is being used to develop the game, Epic Games issued a statement to DualShockers explaining that Destructive Creations didn’t ask for permission to use the graphical engine’s logo in its trailer, and were therefore asked to remove it from all marketing associated with Hatred .
“ Epic Games isn’t involved in this project. Unreal Engine 4 is available to the general public for use ‘for any lawful purpose,’ and we explicitly don’t exert any sort of creative control or censorship over projects, ” Epic Games explained.
“ However, the video is using the trademarked Unreal Engine 4 logo without permission from Epic, and we’ve asked for the removal of our logo from all marketing associated with this product. ”
Yet, despite its negative reception, the CEO of Destructive Creations, Jarosław Zieliński, is seemingly pleased with the reaction the trailer has received. Speaking with Eurogamer via email, Zieliński revealed that Hatred is actually gaining support.
” The world’s response to our trailer I can describe only by using OMFG words, ” Zieliński told Eurogamer. ” I knew it will do some mess around because of the game’s theme, but what is happening is beyond our imagination. I’m constantly writing right now a s***load of responses for fan mails. Yes, fans! We receive a tons of supportive e-mails and it totally blows me away, [I] didn’t expect this. And to all of those people: We won’t disappoint you! ”
What’s more is that Zieliński doesn’t believe that Hatred’s content has gone too far, saying that the game does what is done in many other titles, just without justification. He also advises any player who’d be put off by the game to simply not play it.
“ I don’t think the content has gone too far. It’s just shooting virtual characters and if anybody has a problem with distinguishing reality from a game, he should turn off his computer and go for a long walk. 🙂 We do what you can find in so many titles, we just don’t want justify it. If someone doesn’t like the game and feels disgusted with its content, he doesn’t have to play it–plain and simple. It’s definitely not game for everyone. ”
In regards to the removal of the Unreal Engine 4’s logo, Zieliński took responsibility for the matter and issued to the Eurogamer the following response.
” They have all their rights to do it. They’ve contacted me in a friendly tone, I removed it from YouTube, will remove from the press version of our trailer ASAP and everyone is happy. It was actually my lack of knowledge–in the past I was working on the titles (and trailers) with another type of Unreal licence than the present EULA one. It was obvious for me that you put Unreal logo at the beginning of video, for advertising its greatness (no irony!) and it’s quite mandatory. Looks like I was wrong. 🙂 ”
Hatred is slated to release in Q2 2015, exclusively for PC. We’ll bring you more news on the game should further information reach our ears.
[ DualShockers / Eurogamer ]