Steven Spielberg’s Medal of Honor Had the Worst Start When Real-Life Veteran Trashed the Concept

The atmosphere in Steven Spielberg’s office was icy in November 1999. Paul Bucha, president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, is at the director’s Amblin production company on the Universal Studios lot.The Vietnam veteran, who received America’s highest honor for his own bravery in the face of criticism, is speaking out against video games. firmly. The specific object of his ire was Medal of Honor, a first-person shooter that Spielberg himself created.

Spielberg, whose company DreamWorks Interactive developed the title, looks absolutely gutted. Medal of Honor was his passion project, after all, designed to give kids genuine insight into the history behind WW2. As a proud American, the filmmaker is left heartbroken by Bucha’s verbal tirade.

The Tension Between Sacrifice and Entertainment: Spielberg’s Medal of Honor Dilemma

Medal of Honor seemed to be done for at the conclusion of the meeting. Spielberg is seriously considering cutting his losses, despite the fact that DreamWorks has invested millions in its development and production, and it has only recently reached the “release to manufacturing” stage.

It appears that Bucha’s blitzkrieg has landed a deadly broadside. “Has the renowned war veteran got time for a quick play?” Hirschmann politely responds. This is what the writer and producer of the game, Peter Hirschmann, recalled:

It was an intense meeting. Paul came in and laid it out on the table. We just sat there and let him speak. He didn’t know anything about the game but laid out a case: ‘When it comes to the Medal of Honor, it’s a serious and sacred thing; you don’t turn it into a video game. It’s an awful thing to do.’ He made a really compelling case that we shouldn’t be doing this.

‘Interactive’ was the buzzword of the day when DreamWorks opened its doors in 1995 across Hollywood. DreamWorks had a brand-new interactive division, just like every other major studio, including Paramount, Universal, and Disney.

Its software division concentrated on creating PC games and was manned by former Microsoft workers who had been enticed from Redmond to Hollywood by the glitz and flip-flop weather. However, DreamWorks Interactive had one advantage over other movie studio software divisions: Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg’s WWII Vision Meets Interactive Entertainment

The bearded filmmaker and DreamWorks co-founder was the first person in Hollywood to recognize the value of interactive entertainment. Working as an unofficial consultant at both Atari and LucasArts, he had over the years had a significant, largely unrecognized impact on the early development of the medium.

He finally got the opportunity to get involved in the game himself at DreamWorks Interactive (DWI). As the name suggests, the history of the Medal of Honor began on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1997. Spielberg presented his game concept to DWI’s team while he was still in the middle of post-production on Saving Private Ryan.

Although his R-rated film was too graphic for children, the director intended to use video games to spread his lifelong passion for World War II to younger audiences, motivated by his teenage son Max’s love of GoldenEye.