Bleszinski talks up Skyrim Kinect: "I want to cast spells using my hand"

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski wants more hybrid Kinect games like Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, retaining pad control but letting players perform certain actions using gestures. He also thinks hardcore gamers need to swallow their antipathy to Microsoft's motion-sensitive peripheral.

"I think hardcore gamers are terrified by it, to the point where they get fiercely defensive," Bleszinski told OXM in a new interview, readable from tomorrow in issue 80 (unless you're a subscriber, of course). I got to go to the launch of Kinect in New York City, which was amazing, and I was getting my hair cut by my stylist who's this really fun, awesome street-smart party girl. She's like 'So do you guys have any trips coming up?' and I'm like 'Yeah, we're going to go up to New York City for the Kinect launch'.

"And she's like 'Kinect? What's that?' and I'm like 'it's kind of like a Wii, but you don't need a controller' and she puts the scissors down and she says 'Shut the hell up! I want one!' And she's not necessarily going to play Gears or Halo or GTA, but she has money and if you're smart and you're Microsoft you're going to want to get all demographics to play your console."

Bleszinski thinks Microsoft is, however, keen to keep core gamers interested in Kinect. "That said, it looks like Microsoft's really experimenting with how to have more core games for Kinect. Rise of Nightmares, that was an interesting step, Child of Eden and things like that. I think we're going to continue to see games like that - I've always said that I wanted to see the hybrids, you know?

"I want to play Skyrim and cast my spells using my hand or maybe occasionally doing some other strategy things in other types of games using hand gestures or voice and do an integrated Kinect experience that has both, that's the thing that excites me the most."

He had a few eccentric suggestions for From Software's Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, a mech game in which you must periodically drag frantic crew mates back into the cockpit. "They can do a variation of that where you're a Dad driving the kids to school and you've got to drag them in so they don't fall out the window, that'd be a cool variation."

The golden rule for Bleszinski with Kinect gaming is that nothing should feel bolted on. Were Epic to develop a Kinect-capable Gears of War, it would have to be designed with motion control in mind from scratch. "We wouldn't put it and tack it in. You'd have to make a game that was the Gears experience that is tailored for Kinect, much like Bungie did all the proper things to break the dual analogue barrier for making a first-person shooter on console.

"If it was Gears and 'now Marcus' head moves because your head moves!' - that would suck, and don't even bother doing it because I am a fan of Kinect but if you do it, do it right."

This Gears of War 3 fire extinguisher sequence seems like a natural place to crowbar in Kinect functionality. Care to let your standards slide, Epic?

Get more vintage Bleszinski in issue 80, on shelves tomorrow. You can order a copy online, download it from iTunes or (if you're using Android) from Zinio.