Where did all of the children go?

Gameplay
#1

Same as the title, the game has a notable absence of kids.
The developers went for realism but you don’t see people learning trades at ten or eleven; it’s like everyone’s father in KCD had a child at 11 or 12 and everyone’s wife is well beyond eighteen, which is completely out of touch for the era.
Women would usually be wed shortly before or after puberty; obviously because of certain laws in different countries the game can’t show scenes of “an intimate nature” between people under 18 but there should certainly be child labour shown in the game, along with child death and other things common in the middle ages.

For example imagine the person at sassau monastery with the badly broken leg wasn’t 20 but 12, it would add much more depth and impact to the game.

The same goes for punishing criminals, often you simply kill bandits who surrender for their loot. If they were thirteen or fourteen would you be so harsh or let them run off disarmed?

11 Likes
#2

You have the choice of immortal children, no children, or not being available for sale in some regions. Shekels won out over realism.

8 Likes
#3

I believe most of europe is too sensitive for that.
Edit: ITS A JOKE IM SORRY!

#4

What regions ban the death of children?
Didn’t COD2, 3 or another one in the long and nauseating series have a child die on screen and they only got whined at slightly because they crossed “a line” somehow.
I can understand “no kids” in games like GTA where you drive into people like bowling pins but you have the choice in KCD to finish without killing a single person, so if you go around killing kids you could greatly increase notoriety by killing a child to a point where guards will kill you in sight.

@bones Good Europe joke, if it wasn’t for Americans trying to link games to gun violence and sexism you could probably make more.

2 Likes
#5

It’s the rating system. Killing child pixels is an instant no rating granted. That means less sales. Quite a few countries won’t let you sell refused classification media. Almost all of them.

Google wasn’t a lot of help with specifics. I know Germany has a lot of rules about Nazi symbols, and Australia has a lot of rules about drugs. Steam has plenty of rules too.

What it ultimately comes down to is that rather than risk sales, or have unkillable children, they chose no children as the solution.

Of all the things needing to be fixed in the game, the lack of children would be pretty low on my list.

Feel free to find out for yourself if you like, but that is the reason children aren’t included. The risk of it hurting sales.

Here’s a good starting place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_content_rating_system Some countries don’t even have 18+ categories.

1 Like
#6

The issue isn’t necessarily having children die in games but rather having the player be able to kill them.

2 Likes
#7

That is correct, if a child dies due to a cutscene or not to the player’s actions, it’s permissible.

At least Fallout 2 have the balls to have children to be killed AND have severe consequences for doing so like society calling you out as a childkiller and shunning you, a huge difference than just a child mortality mod in Skyrim. You can still have your cake, it’s how you make it believable.

But eh, mainstream society and their ‘needs’.

1 Like
#8

I agree with you this is one of the things irritating me, too. But like Aradiel said in general it is rather a small thing, other problems should be focused. Personally i liked the system they used for Witcher :sunglasses:

#9

Just imagine Skalitze scene with childrens and then ask yourself, what rating do you want to give.

1 Like
#10

Put the children in, give them god like abilities so when you attempt to strike them they use the force choke hold on the player and throw henry across the floor into a suddenly spawned pile of feces.

Or… for realism, enable children with ability to slay and tell people to stop qq’ing because someone was a bad boy/girl and didn’t eat all his/her “vegetables” and move on with life. Makes me want to create a mod for kcd, adding kids and allowing them to be slain and posting it all over youtube so it can be flagged for abuse against children in which i would have to say they are a special race of loli aliens and not children and banter there like i am here.

Or…we continue with no children and pretend when people do “the dirty”, out pops insta-grown ken ready to swing a hammer and pretend it is realism.

Cheers!

#11

:stuck_out_tongue:
10 char

#12

Fallout 2 immediately popped in to my mind, damn thieving kids…

I don’t understand why they could not be included, the game is 18+ already? or would it do anything else to the rating as well? (who even pays attention to the ratings today?)

#13

That’s because you can kill everyone in KCD and in many countries there are strict laws against games in which you can kill children, so the children were left out. Though I do believe Henry may still be a child to modern standards, he could be 16-17 or so, and his friend’s be around that age too, though probably a little older.

#14

And even Fallout have 2 version EU with killable children and US with non targetable children, if i remember it right.
We had absolutely diferent society in the times of good old Fallout.
No black people in game - nobody cares. No woman char - nobody cares. And so on…
I wont be surprised if WH had to promine someone in US that Henry is albino african trans gender…

#15

The last thing we need is to give retarded Trump supporters yet another reason to blame the almost weekly mass murder of children on video games. The day that americans learn to act like members of a developed country, as opposed to a fourth-world backwater in the midst of a civil war, is the day that we can sell them media that portrays the killing of children.

#16

that is probably right, I was young so was only aware of the version I got. But I know games like carmageddon had a version with robots or zombies instead of people and so on.

Though Fallout did give you the option of male or female, and the pre made character had different ethnicity. But the actual in game sprites was always white. But your point still stands, it was a different time back then.

#17

make children essential and no legal problems

#18

yer its the snow flakes get upset if you can kill children in games, kill 200 women while they sleep no issue though. issue came up on skyrim

#19

Problem: You can kill essential NPCs.

#20

Pretty sure being able to kill kids in a video game is banned in certain regions, which is probable why they didn’t add them. That or they couldn’t afford the face-scans for kids.

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