How would you make a first person game with realistic close and ranged combat, but as little blood/gore as possible? I want to expand the market to the more… sensitive types. Such as myself.
Seems the more realistic you get, the gorier it gets. How would you do it without it being lame or weird?
I’m thinking along the lines of general concepts here.
I would suggest, you remove one of the senses, sight. Just let the player listen to the sounds of gore and not show them any blood. You should get the same intense effect that you want without having to see it. For example instead of showing someone getting sliced by a sword and dying, just use the sounds of that happening. What do you think?
When you say “realistic” and “combat”, you are going to have gore. No game comes close to the actual level of gore, which is a good thing. Realistic portrayals of combat in video games are nonexistant.
I remember I used to play a game where you could turn the gore on or off. I had it on of course, but the option was there for those that didn’t like it. Some people won’t play unless there is gore – without it, you lose a sense of realism.
“How would you do it without it being lame or weird?”
Easy - Just remove the ‘gore’… E.g:
Fight against non-biological enemies (Robotic, stone, ice… anything you want - can be sci-fi, mythical, fantasy …). Note you can still have gore - people don’t tend to get offended by, say, a puddle of water 
Vaporising weapons.
Non-lethal weapons (Nerf!).
Enemies inside Advanced Armour (Especially if it self destructs upon death).
etc.
In short: If you don’t define realism as how much gore you have, you have a world of opportunities.
Half Life (the original) had an option to turn off gore. I second the idea of leaving in the sound effects just no visual effects. Personally I don’t think gore adds too much to gameplay because I am less concerned with visuals and more on the actual controllable gameplay.
Take a look at some of the action games from the 90’s where the technology had limited the gore they could put in. Goldeneye 007 on the N64 was king in the day and if I remember had very little to no gore, just a few red colored splatters on players when they were shot.
So focus the players attention more on completing the act of combat than the results of combat and they shouldn’t miss the gore too much I bet. Ragdolls without gore are fun as well. So if an act of combat creates a drastic visual change, rag doll is a favorite of mine that gets the point across.
You want realism, and you want violence, but you don’t want to see the effects of that violence. This sounds too much like the people I know who eat animals but refuse to watch how they were slaughtered and treated before turning into happy little bite-sized chunks.
Don’t do what you’re doing.
Just leave out the blood and stuff, it really isn’t needed. Just look at the old James Bond movies. So long as they react so you know they hit them, it can even be funny if they over react a little. One of my favorite though not realistic games was No One Lives Forever. Was great fun with the early rag dolls and comments they made.
I think it’s sad that people focus on the realism so much and want to see blood splats, dismemberment and blood pooling and dripping. I’d rather see better acting and emotional response if its serious or comedy otherwise. Not enough games are funny, and most take themselves far to seriously making games dark, dreary and tedious straight out of a run of the mill art college studio.
there was this game called swat 3, which was quite “realistic”, and it had very little gore. Check it out on youtube if you want, you’ll see how blood is barely noticeable, you could take the next step and completely remove the gore!
One of the most popular first person shooters, Battlefield 2, has no blood at all. If you shoot somebody, they just die.
It’s definitely possible and it works well.
Do the PG-13 Hollywood approach. Make cool sound effects but let go of too much blood splatters.
People that get hurt should not scream but rather make “ough!” or “Hmpfh!” sounds. Think of the original A-Team series here.
Loads of shooting but not that much blood or violence that felt wrong.
If you are - like you say - the more “goreless” type yourself then just do whatever you feel would work for you.
Look at something like angry birds, they dont use any gore. Instead they will make the pigs and birds kind of poof out in a cloud of smoke. Or go the old batman route with the big pow,
People in this forum seem to be small minded, unable to understand how something can be realistic without gore. Weird responses.
I wouldn’t doubt these people are just angry at censorship because they like gore, and get upset when it’s taken away because they want to be rebellious against “the prudes” or whatever.
Anyways, it’s easy: just don’t have gore.
When I play games, I don’t even notice gore.
BF2142- no gore at all. One of the best games ever made.
Day of Defeat- gore was so lame it was just crappy blood splatter. Never even noticed, never ever cared.
I really don’t care. Unless you’re trying for a Silent Hill or Resident Evil type game— gore is pointless, and you can easily just NOT have it. People won’t care if they like the game. Sure, it won’t draw in the weirdos and teenagers who thirst to drink blood and eat intestines, but who really cares?
Games are fun for every reason except the gore. Gore is a graphical aspect, and Graphics < Gameplay every time. Not to say graphics aren’t important, but that a sub-category of barely-noticeable graphics is minute compared to graphics, which are far less important than fun gameplay.
BF2142 and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault were the funnest FPS games ever. Without any blood or gore? The same fun. The same amazing. And I don’t even remember gore in either, and I’m pretty sure BF2142 had 0% gore. Best. FPS. Ever.
Just don’t add it. It’ll still be realistic.
What? This isn’t a logical connection.
Bleeding isn’t the realism aspect of Combat. Bleeding is a visual aspect of it, having nothing to do with the mechanics or physics…
In fact, I don’t even know any popular PC games that have noticable amounts of gore, yet I could tell you TONS of realistic ones.
I don’t want to watch animals being slaughtered, never. And I never will see how they die, or kill one myself. But I will eat meat until I die. So what?
I think that makes you garbage, and I hope you improve.
I can see, living in your fantasy world, how you could perceive it that way.
LoL, you’re silly to think the majority of the human race is garbage, yet you are somehow above them because of your superior morals and logic.
Wait, I actually don’t think it’s called silly, I think it’s called narcissistic, or at the very least arrogant. Not to mention unrealistic that human beings don’t want to see disgusting gore of cow mutilation, but DO want to eat delicious hamburgers and steak.
It’s called humanity, and people are not garbage for wanting to be human. It’s unrealistic to assume or require people to be forced to see life end just so they can enjoy a hamburger. Imagine a world where everyone was required to watch a 20 second clip of a cow being processed before they order at McDonalds or TGI Fridays.
I mean…seriously? LoL. You’re just silly now, and I don’t think it is me who lives in an alternate reality, since the majority of humans would agree with me they enjoy meat, but not videos of cow processing.
I’ve never seen a game with realistic gore, care to tell us which ones come to mind?
I didn’t say anything of the sort. All I’m saying is that reveling in ignorance makes you garbage.
I think this thread is getting derailed…if you gentleman would like to discuss the merits of ignoring the source of one’s food versus full on embracing the animalistic premise that mankind survives on… perhaps private messages could be sent?
To the original poster. I suppose it depends what you are defining “gore” as. I assume blood n guts? And not just physical acts of violence? (aka shooting someone, or knifing them).
If blood is the problem, just remove it, as others have said, often it goes unnoticed. Or you could always go the GI Joe cartoon root… and use lasers instead of bullets 
lol! it derailed quite fast! what happened??