Luc Bernard: Wolfenstein is an insult to the Holocaust Indie dev wants to offer a different WW2 game experience

Rachel Weber Senior Editor Monday 9th September 2013 Share this article Share

Indie developer Luc Bernard has strong words of criticism for modern day shooters, calling them distasteful and in the case of Wolfenstein: The New Order, even an insult to the Holocaust.

"You've seen it, right? I think they have robot Nazis or something like that? That's what I would call distasteful," he told GamesBeat.

"I'd nearly say it spits on what happened during World War II. You're taking what the Nazis represent - a mass genocide, the killing of so many people - and you're making it seem like a toy, a game. It's an insult to the Holocaust."

Bernard is currently trying to raise funding for his own game, Imagination Is The Only Escape, which he calls an "educational story-driven game about the Holocaust through the eyes of a child." He's turned to crowd-funding after publishers failed to grasp his concept.

"This doesn't really fit with publishers," he explained.

"I don't have anything against them, but a game like this doesn't fit in their market model. Even when I was trying to find people to pitch it to, they proposed instead that I try and get the license to Maus, the comic book. I said, 'No, that's a great story, but this is my own thing. I don't want to use someone else's license.' This just isn't an easy game to do through traditional methods."

In the past Bernard has worked on Mecho Wars, Reaper, SteamPirates and as a design consultant on Pocket God: The Runs.

The game's funding campaign currently has $3,441 of its $125,000 goal raised, with 39 days to go.