After all, no one likes being tricked. Most other game creators and publishers, on the other hand, don’t do this. Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox have all shown off games a long time before they were supposed to done. This could help build more excitement, but it could also lead to letdown if the game very different from what was shown or promised.
A video game should shown for the first time about six to ten months before it comes out. Capcom always great at showing off games that will come out in the next year. This makes the trailers and footage of how the game played look more like the final result.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day
Rare gave the 2001 cult classic game Conker’s Bad Fur Day a whole new look while it was being made. It was first called Twelve Tales: Conker 64, and it was a more typical Nintendo game for kids. During E3, 1998, some people said that the game was too close to Banjo-Kazooie, which was coming out a month later from Rare.
The game’s development was restarted, and it became more for adults. This turned out to the right choice, since early video shows that it looks too much like Banjo and other games from the time. This adult twist made the game stand out in a time when there were a lot of games.
Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever was once the game that took the longest to make, so there were sure to differences in how it looked. There are four different versions of DNF in all. The first the version of the Quake 2 system shown at E3 in 1998. It looked pretty good, but this engine was a huge pain for the people who made it. This made it necessary to switch to Unreal and start the job over.
Then there was the well-known 2001 E3 trailer and the newly leaked build, both of which looked good. The images on glass for that time are really cool. Due to a number of problems, the project had to started over a few years later. The landscapes in the version from 2003 to 2005 look like they were copied from Doom 3. Then, after 3D Realms hired a lot of new people in 2006, the final release began to take shape.
TimeShift
With TimeShift, you can play the early version in an official way, which doesn’t happen very often. The PC and the May 2006 test disc for the Official Xbox Magazine both had a playable early demo of Sabre Interactive’s TimeShift. The finished version that came out a year later looks very different. The main character different, the gameplay has changed a lot, and the colour scheme has changed.
The demo has a nice blue tint, but the final Gears of War game mostly grey. It’s so unusual to find a working early build on a demo disc for a console. There have PC demo discs with games that were never released, but this almost unheard of on a computer.
Doom 2016
The new version of Doom that came out in 2016 was a great game, but it didn’t start out that way. It began in the late 2000s as Doom 4, and it didn’t look good. The project was clearly influenced by games like Call of Duty and Killzone, and it used the same dull colour tone as Gears of War, which was popular at the time.
If this was the final result, Doom fans would not have happy, because the Doom community has always more focused on the old school. The project was restarted and turned into Doom 2016, which was one of the best-reviewed games of 2016.
Resident Evil 4
Like DNF, Resident Evil 4 has around for a long time. The first version of the game was changed and put out on the PS2 as Devil May Cry. After Nintendo stopped the only one who could play, the game took place in a castle and had a foggy enemy like Uroboros from RE5. The GameCube couldn’t handle this complicated enemy, so the version was thrown out. The dream version came next, and it looked a lot scarier. Leon went through a scary house and changed from the real world to a nightmare world.
Because of these changes, the version had to thrown out because the GameCube usually can’t load both worlds in the same room. After another version that was quickly thrown out, Shinji Mikami took over as director, and the final product began to take shape.
Resident Evil 2
After the first Resident Evil sold well and got good reviews, there was a lot of buzz about the second game. When Resident Evil 2 done in 1998, it was very different from the first version that shown. Leon could still played, but instead of Claire, Elza Walker the main character. The setting of the police station looked much more like a real police station than the one in the finished game, which was based on a museum.
This version almost done when the game had to start over because of quality issues. They did, which good because playing the demo of Resident Evil 2 that came out a few years ago just not fun. The level design doesn’t work for a RE game, and it’s clear why the museum theme chosen instead of the more realistic station.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Over the years, trailers and gameplay footage that didn’t match the end product caused a lot of trouble, but Aliens: Colonial Marines the one that led to a lawsuit. Like Cyberpunk 2077’s pre-launch, Aliens: CM’s strong showing at E3 2012 had nothing to do with the final game. It’s reasonable that the console versions made less good because they were getting old by 2013.
But even the PC version totally taken out of the game. At least Watch Dogs had next-gen graphics hidden in the code, which you could turn on with a little bit of skill. Randy Pitchford kept saying that the video was actual gaming. Along with the fact that there were no warnings in print, it’s easy to see why this led to a lawsuit.
Devil’s Third
Devil’s Third, which was very hard to make and got bad reviews, one of the last real Wii U-only games. THQ took over as publisher after the deal with Xbox Game Studios fell through. This the first time Happy Wheels game shown off, and it looks very different from how it will look on the Wii U. The fights look the same. But the characters are all different in the end result.
In the trailer, there a guy with an X-shaped scar on his face and a woman holding a katana. But Ivan, the Bollywood Vin Diesel, nowhere to seen. There are also much better gore effects, and the fights are more vertical now. Devil’s Third was in limbo after THQ went bankrupt. But Nintendo saved the project and made it a Wii U exclusive.
The Last Of Us
The gameplay of The Last of Us was very amazing at E3 2012 and PAX Prime that same year. You could see Joel change the bullets in the gun, and the AI seemed to be from the next generation before that age even started. Even though the final game one of the best of all time, many people still annoyed by the changes made between the gameplay demos and the final game.
The AI wasn’t even close to what was shown. And compared to many other games, it was pretty bad. A typical enemy who hides and waits to attack you never shows up in the game. At least it looked the same. And the game as a whole fun, but the AI just wasn’t what promised.
Halo Infinite
Before July 2020, when the first gaming footage shown, Halo: Infinite had a lot of cinematic trailers. It got a mixed response. Many people said that the game looks fun but also very unfinished. Craig himself is the best example of this, since his face isn’t something you’d see in a final game. Many of the developers agreed that the footage wasn’t ready to shown to the public.
In the end, Halo Infinite pushed back a whole year. The single-player campaign was well-done, but the multiplayer was not, as it was missing many simple features. Also, split-screen campaign co-op, which had promised since 2017, taken away, which made people angry.