When Dead Island released its teaser trailer, everyone took notice. It wasn’t because it featured a little girl who had turned into a zombie and been thrown out the window — no. It was because the trailer was a cinematic experience that was unlike anything else the industry had really released in this medium before it. However, now that time has passed, other developers have given input publicly and random people have also shown interest in the fact that including a child dying in a trailer isn’t exactly the best way to do things.

Thankfully, Deep Silver’s Producer Sebastian Reichert, has stepped up and defended the development team’s decision to create the trailer as they did and he marked it entirely up to the realistic notion of it all. Frankly, I support what Deep Silver provided entirely. While video games are an entertaining medium, sometimes they go more for shock factor than just realism and I feel that Reichert & Co were trying to be tasteful with their decision rather than just trying to create shock value for the consumer.

“I’m feeling sad for the people who don’t see that in this trailer are also 25 regular people dead,” he said. “They’re running around and trying to eat your brains, but they’re still dead.

“Killing people in general is a taboo. So as soon as you go to the zombie topic, you have to face the fact you will kill people, else it won’t work. So yes, we also have a kid in there. But I don’t see we exploited this in any way, like we just splattered her over the ground or some weird s**t like that.

“She fell out of a tall building at the beginning – or at the end. We took good care that we didn’t overdo it. It’s not a gooey pump or something. We’re not doing this for the showing of gore and splatter.

“Of course we’re aware that if this was another character it would have another feeling. But in the end, the other people are also dead. This is what happens in a realistic setting.”

Those concerned that they’ll have to boycott the title because child zombies will be featured throughout can rest easy. Deep Silver decided long ago and that child zombies are unnecessary and won’t add much to the experience at all outside of shock factor (you see people, artistic decision).

“We were thinking about it to implement it. But what are the advantages of a kid zombie who has no reach? He’s weaker. Basically from a gameplay perspective, it’s only there to shock people. The game is drastic enough the way it is. We’re flying enough intestines and limbs around.

“We can happily say the game is brutal enough. We don’t need kids in there.”

How many gamers out there are absolutely stoked for this first-person, open world RPG zombie fest preparing to land in our laps in the future? I can’t wait for this one to release and I’m sure it’ll definitely be a cult classic rather than a commercial success (sadly).