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The Bourne Conspiracy developer High Moon would welcome putting Matt Damon’s likeness in future Bourne titles, despite his opposition to the level of violence in the first game.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com in an interview published here, director Emmanuel Valdez said that the team wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to scrap their current Bourne in favour of a Damon-authorised likeness if the movie star changed his mind and approved such a move.
“If Matt Damon picks up our game and really loved it and calls us up and says he wants to be in it I don’t think we’ll baulk at the idea,” Valdez told VideoGamer.com.
Damon has been in the headlines recently for his outspoken views on game violence. In April MTV Multiplayer ran a story which claimed that Damon didn’t want his likeness in The Bourne Conspiracy because he felt it was too violent. According to the report: “Damon was in negotiations to lend his voice and likeness when development was getting off the ground, but he took issue with the game’s level of violence and pulled out.”
US newspaper The Boston Globe ran an interview with Damon in which he said: “I lobbied hard to not make a first-person shooter game but to make it more like Myst, which was a great interesting puzzle you tried to solve – you know, to play with his amnesia or his memory. They weren’t interested. They made the video anyway, without my likeness.”
Despite Damon’s views it seems seem as if High Moon does not hold any grudges. Lead designer Rory McGuire told us: “When we originally worked on whether or not we put Damon in as our Bourne he originally had stated at the Cannes film festival that he wasn’t interested in doing the character any more. So at that point there was no question of course. Now he’s changed his tune a little bit so yeah, I think we’d re-evaluate.”
And the team believes there is still hope that Damon could change his mind and approve the implementation of his likeness in future action-oriented titles. Valdez said: “It’s not like he doesn’t play any games. He has a certain view about violence in video games in particular. We’ve taken a lot of strides to really capture the character Jason Bourne who doesn’t kill innocents just like you’ve seen in the movies. A lot of that came from Matt Damon’s input as far as the development of the movie version of the character and we took that same approach for the Jason Bourne in our game too.”
When asked whether Damon’s views were disingenuous given the level of violence in the Bourne film trilogy, Valdez replied: “You know it’s his views. We respect them. That’s all I can say. If that’s how he feels that’s perfectly fine with us.”
Check out the rest of our interview with High Moon’s Emmanuel Valdez and Rory McGuire right here. You can expect a review early next week.
The Bourne Conspiracy is out now for Xbox 360 and PS3.
