EA: We p***ed off a lot of people with Army of Two

Players felt killing terrorists for cash in Afghanistan and Iraq were 'wrong', says EA Montreal boss.

EA has admitted to making mistakes with the first Army of Two game, saying "we were able to piss off a lot of people".

Army of Two, released in March 2008, was a third-person cover-based shooter that focused on two-player co-op action.

It saw players kill terrorists for cash in a number of locations and time periods, including Afghanistan 2001 and Iraq 2003.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, EA Montreal boss Alain Tascan admitted the giant games company "got carried away", and people thought killing terrorists for cash in places where "real life our troops are dying" was "wrong".

He said: "The mistake we made was we thought that what is going to make a certain type of person laugh, is going to make everybody laugh. The reality is, you can laugh off everything but not with everybody.

"When we mixed killing in North Africa, killing terrorists for money and then fist pumping and saying something funny afterwards, in a place where real life our troops are dying, people just felt whatever the game is, this is wrong. You can't do that. People from the left thought we were on the right; people from the right thought we were on the left. We were able to piss off a lot of people."

Despite such concerns, Army of Two proved popular, particularly among US gamers. The sequel, Army of Two: The 40th Day, is due out this Friday. Find out what we thought of it over at our review.

In response to complaints about the first game, developer EA Montreal toned down mercenary duo Salem and Rios' over-the-top behaviour for the sequel.

"We needed to correct that," Tascan added, "because it was taking away from what the game was. Some people focused so much on that they didn't see the game. They just thought, how can you do that? My brother is in Afghanistan and in Iraq, you cannot do this kind of thing. We got carried away. The reality is we have real recordings from mercenaries in the field, and let me tell you, we took ten percent in the first game of what was said in war.

"But is not like in the movies, it's not appropriate. What we're discovering, now that we're a mass market entertainment medium, is, like movies, we have to filter. What would be the reality via our medium? And things evolve. Television evolves and movies evolve. We have to respect that, and we've learned good ways to do that. The new one I feel is still very funny, but at least it's more Bruce Willis funny than Steven Seagal funny."