There have been complaints levied at the new Spider-Man game from Insomniac Studio about its visual quality versus what was shown in trailers and previews. While in this case, it’s a little dubious, Spider-Man looks great, but this practice is certainly not uncommon. Let’s take a look at five games that when released, definitely did not match what they looked like in previews.
5 Games That Definitely Did Get a Graphical Downgrade
Watch Dogs
Back in 2012, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who wasn’t hyped to find out what would come of Watch Dogs, then an unreleased IP from Ubisoft. Previewed as a gorgeous open world title which lived and breathed with detailed denizens and city streets, it was the game many thought would be a game of the year contender, and a new standard for visual fidelity.
Come 2014 though, opinions soured when the final product was definitely less polished. Many of the small details which wowed viewers at E3 had been glossed over with the usual stop gaps, from characters whose former detail was replaced with smooth and glassy features to lighting effects that were leveled down to a faint or non-existent level. Ubisoft has gone on the record since saying the reason for the graphical downgrade was their lack of knowledge on the power of the current gen consoles – having not yet been released in 2012 – but by then, it was already too late for many gamers stuck wondering what could have been.
