Greg Goodrich confessed that he handed his resignation in twice during the development process of the reboot of EA’s first-person shooter series.
Medal of Honor is an iconic series that made its name in the first-person shooter genre. To be more specific, the game was ‘the’ first-person shooter on the PlayStation One up until Medal of Honor: Frontline was released on the PlayStation 2.
After that the Call of Duty series came in and dominated the market, a move that triggered EA into rebooting the series and setting it in the present day.
For those who do not remember, the game was embroiled in a considerable amount of controversy when news broke out that gamers could play as the Taliban in the multiplayer component of the game. It seemed that the move was a tad bit premature as the general public thought it was not the right time for the inclusion of the faction in a game.
Many argued that soldiers were still fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and that adding them to the game would be disrespectful to those soldiers as well as the hundreds who had died in the conflict.
EA promptly renamed the Taliban and it put the mass hysteria to rest but it also pushed the game’s executive producer to the breaking point as he wrote a letter of resignation on more than one occasion.
He explained that he had to protect the Tier 1 Operatives who Danger Close was consulting while at the same time keeping the publishers happy.
Greg Goodrich explained that, “Having to deal with the secrecy of these communities, keeping their reputations intact and holding their livelihoods in the palm of my hand – not even having earned the right to yet...then having that break out!”, was one of the reasons he felt an immense deal of pressure.
He continued, “There were a lot of things going on. There were two specific incidents when I decided I just couldn’t do it...Everything that these guys have built and lived for over the last 15-20 years of their careers is now in my hands. I took that very seriously and had a lot of sleepless nights and did a lot of staring at my ceiling thinking ‘what have I gotten myself into?”
It seems that Mr. Goodrich has to do it all over again for the sequel, which is titled ‘Medal of Honor: Warfighter’.
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