• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Most misleading game trailers of all time

Umbasaborne

Banned
You know how it goes. Game gets shown off at e3, looks incredible, finally comes out 3-5 years later, and looks nothing like what was shown. Either the visuals were downgraded in that time, features were removed, or the scope was drastically reduced.



For me this one still stings. The first trailer for halo infinite had multiple biomes, weather effects, amazing visuals, and it even looked like some form of underwater exploration. The game that came out had one biome, no weather, acceptible visuals, and a treasure trove of missing features.



Watchdogs was supposed to be the next gen open world showcase, and when it came out…it looked worse than gta v for the xbox 360. Missing from the this trailer are the high res textures, dynamic crowd interactions, high quality effects, impressive looking weather. Just a complete shit show from Top to bottom.
 

Kuranghi

Member
Anthem surely, I'd say this is the only one thats maybe worse than Halo: Infinite because they were straight up pretending this was the flow of the game:




At least with Halo: Infinite you could say that was more of an engine showcase and wasn't necessarily going to be representative of the actual released game and how it played.
 

Umbasaborne

Banned
Anthem surely, I'd say this is the only one thats maybe worse than Halo: Infinite because they were straight up pretending this was the flow of the game:




At least with Halo: Infinite you could say that was more of an engine showcase and wasn't necessarily going to be representative of the actual released game and how it played.

Anthem was such a bold faced lie, even when they showed it for the first time and swore up and down it was real gameplay, i knew the scope of what they were promising wouldnt actually be possible.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Kinda famously



Some things were actually improved from this and the game ended up looking damn fine years later, but some of the lighting and volumetric clouds and animations weren't matched in real time for another several years after, the general flow still might not be

Also I for one don't know why Nintendo gets a pass for this, BoTW didn't look like that on either the Wii U this was announced and made for or even the Switch




I'm still a bit sad about that Halo Infinite engine demo, it hinted at so much potential, the end result was a decent game but kind of left you wondering what was going on for the last 7 years
 
Last edited:

Umbasaborne

Banned
The Alien game from Gearbox.


Yeah, in this case sadly gearbox built a high end verticle slice that would only run on super beefy pc’s. Then they outsourced the rest of the game
To a small company named time gate who had to hastily put together a product based off of that verticle slice, it also had to run on the aging xbox 360 and ps3. It doesnt help that gear box took most of the funds that sega gave them for the game and put them towards borderlands 2
 
Last edited:
Alot of people cant tell between obvious CGI trailers vs in game footage trailer vs gameplay trailer. After 25 years of gaming I kind of have it down where im rarely disappointed. But Elite Dangerous oddessy trailer since it never came out for console I guess lol. Graphically maybe cyberpunk...even on XsX game was so blurry I couldnt finish. next gen upgrade is maybe 70% of what was shown, so its closer.
 
The Halo one didn't get nearly as much shit as it deserved, they used that to promote the "new engine"/new tech that the game was going to have but it was all fake and they paid some other company to make that. The final game had nothing to do with it.

The Halo one is on the same level of Motorstorm except that what Halo showed was very achievable while the Motorstorm one was absolute impossible on the PS3.

Killzone 2 at least ended up being very close to what was shown, it gets more shit than it deserves.
 
Last edited:

Fake

Member


Ahead of schedule too...


000D8E9J4RI9PTYH-C122-F4.jpg
 
Last edited:

Mr Hyde

Member
When I saw the first trailers for Dark Souls 2 I already knew the game wouldn´t look like that on PS3, no fucking way, but the downgrade was a lot more severe than I anticipated. DS2 is a fantastic game, but man does it look rough in certain areas.
 

lachesis

Member



Well, this one was for me.

The whole scripted battle scenes not present in the real game... I didn't mind it that much (as trailers are often showing what devs are aiming for...)
- but I just don't like when they "alter" the storyline or flat out lie to hide something.

To some extent, MGS2 as well, and some movie trailers (like Marvel ones) for the same reason.
 
Last edited:

Majormaxxx

Member
You know how it goes. Game gets shown off at e3, looks incredible, finally comes out 3-5 years later, and looks nothing like what was shown. Either the visuals were downgraded in that time, features were removed, or the scope was drastically reduced.



For me this one still stings. The first trailer for halo infinite had multiple biomes, weather effects, amazing visuals, and it even looked like some form of underwater exploration. The game that came out had one biome, no weather, acceptible visuals, and a treasure trove of missing features.



Watchdogs was supposed to be the next gen open world showcase, and when it came out…it looked worse than gta v for the xbox 360. Missing from the this trailer are the high res textures, dynamic crowd interactions, high quality effects, impressive looking weather. Just a complete shit show from Top to bottom.

Dang. I just finished halo on the series x. Enjoyed it. Great gameplay and crisp graphics. But this trailer is something else entirely!
 
Last edited:
Everygame where the trailer shows a world of possibilities but never really discloses the gameplay or what kind of game it will be. Examples of flying dragons and huge open worlds with castles, only for the game to be released as a 2d platformer.
 

Tokio Blues

Member
Kinda famously



Some things were actually improved from this and the game ended up looking damn fine years later, but some of the lighting and volumetric clouds and animations weren't matched in real time for another several years after, the general flow still might not be

Also I for one don't know why Nintendo gets a pass for this, BoTW didn't look like that on either the Wii U this was announced and made for or even the Switch




I'm still a bit sad about that Halo Infinite engine demo, it hinted at so much potential, the end result was a decent game but kind of left you wondering what was going on for the last 7 years


Was coming to post the Killzone 2 trailer. I still remember the feeling the first time when I saw it. Just incredible.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
From what I understand, fromsoft ran up against the limitations of what the ps360 was capable of hard during this games development. Ultimately, the highly advertised next gen lighting had to be quietly cut because the target platforms were not actually capable of supporting it.
They had to know they weren't capable of it before making the video. There was no sudden ah ha moment where they flipped on the lighting to find it unfortunately didn't work.
 
Are there any trailers that looked good, but turned out to be the dogs bollocks, instead of looking good and looking like dog shit?

The Order 1886 and Ratchet looked better in game than they did in trailer, for exmple.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
All time is obvious. Motostorm, KZ2, Halo 2, Watch Dogs, Uncharted 4, Rainbow Six, Division etc.

The fact that we are getting these misleading trailers in the 2020s is even more aggravating. It's like these publishers think we are fools and wont notice the downgrades.

Horizon's supposedly capture on Playstation 5 trailer looks nothing like the final game. Especially the final shot where she goes through this lush forest.
Horizon's second gameplay trailer released mere months before the final game didnt even have the mission in the final game.
Halo Infinite's original trailer featured new wildlife herds, gorgeous visuals, and incredible lighting that was missing from the final game.
Forza Horizon 5's original reveal had far better foliage than in the final game even on PC.
 
Top Bottom