DEMENTIUM: THE WARD is a first-person shooter/survival-horror game for the Nintendo DS console in which the player takes on the role of a man who wakes up in a derelict hospital with no idea of his identity. In order to find out his identity he must battle his way through the grotesque results of medical experiments carried out in the institution. The game was classified '15' for strong violence and moderate horror.

Although a significant part of progressing through the game depends on the player finding clues and solving puzzles, there is a frequent requirement to fight and kill enemies in order to survive and move through to the game’s conclusion. This results in the violence having a cumulatively strong impact over the duration of the gameplay as the player takes on these enemies with a limited arsenal of guns, a club and a hand-held circular saw. The enemies themselves are fantastical in appearance (skeletal figures with open chest cavities), behave in a manner reminiscent of ‘zombies’ and are not realistically human. Encounters with these figures see bullet impacts, blows with the club or ‘cutting up’ with the circular saw, containing no strong detail, and although there is some bloodshed in the first moments of such attacks, it is neither realistic nor sustained. These enemies merely disappear to register that they have been killed. Although some close-range gunfire can take off a zombie’s head this is without gory detail and there are no other opportunities to dismember or decapitate such victims. In addition, because they vanish from view on being killed, there is also no opportunity to inflict post-mortem damage. Other obstacles that require fighting are giant slugs and larger ‘boss’ enemies of an equally fantastical nature. The frequency of the violence in the game places it outside what may be allowed at the ‘12’ category where the Guidelines state that ‘There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood … Occasional gory moments only.’ However, it meets with the requirements of the Guidelines at ‘15’ where strong violence is allowed provided it does ‘not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury’.

The nature of the enemies faced by the player both reinforces the fantasy elements of the game and contributes a sense of moderate horror which is emphasised by the appearance of the environment in which the game is played: blood-soaked walls and floors around which bodies are strewn. However, the bloody images are lacking in strong realism and do not amount to ‘the strongest gory images which are unlikely to be acceptable’ at the ‘15’ category.

Dementium: The Ward

Dementium: The Ward