Speaking as part of yet another one of Irrational’s fantastic interview podcasts, celebrated film director Guillermo del Toro spoke with studio head Ken Levine about the opportunities that games have started to provide other than entertainment.
"Video games are no doubt the bridge to the future of genre narrative," said del Toro. "You're not going to see the narratives of, let's say, a [Pedro] Almodovar or an indie film maker wane; they’re going to stay, but big, genre, artistically-challenging, brilliantly-done storytelling. Holy shit, there's a lot you can do in games that you'd never even dream of doing in movies, or TV, or comics."
"Films are fantastic. They are one of the peaks of human narrative. Now, and I'm sorry to break the news to the movie industry, but so is the video game.”
Of course, games have a bit of growing up to do before these kinds of masterpieces can be developed. “The video game - not all of them right now - but the video games we'll be playing in 2020 will be f***ing masterpieces,” said del Toro. “Many masterpieces."
Guillermo del Toro also touched on the creative differences seen in movies and games. He even believes that directors who truly have an appreciation, a passion really, for games, will have success in development.
"It's not a medium where you are going to wander if you're just an interested observer," he explained. "You have to be a gamer to completely absorb the possibility of narrative in games with their own f***ing set of rules. The mistake you have many times is you have a filmmaker who says 'oh there's money in video games, I'm going to go make a video game'. No."
"You need to truly have a passion, and even a layman understanding of the medium or you will be completely pummeled by the process," he surmised.
THQ and del Toro have been working together on Insane, a three-part series that is set up for reveal sometime soon, and a release in 2013. Volition will be handling development, and if del Toro’s comments have anything to do with the spit and polish of the title, gamers have a lot to look forward to.
Be sure to check out the entire interview for an in-depth discussion between a major force in movies and a major force in games. At just under 30 minutes, it offers deep insight into directorial prerogatives and the work that goes into creating the worlds that have come from the two.
