The Grand Theft Auto VI leaks were big news for all kinds of reasons, but one of the more interesting talking points was the revival of a debate about how “bad” a game can look in front of the public. As I said the other day, while there have been and always will be idiots who say the dumbest things, I think the vast majority of normal people, when faced with footage like what we saw from GTA VI, think either “neat” or “Wow , it’s really nice to see the sausage being made like this.” Part of that charm, of course, stems from the fact that we almost never see big games in a situation like this! And if the GTA leak does nothing else, I hope it can at least help normalize the idea (at least to the general public) that, no, these games don’t look “bad” when they work, they just look like they’re being worked on. Following the leaks and wider discussion of a game’s visuals during development, several other developers and studios have come forward and shared footage of what their games looked like early on. And it’s all great, every last frame of it. Screenshot: Twitter G/O Media may receive a commission $10 or more Humble Bundle – Starlight Bundle Benefit Starlight Children’s FoundationFor $10 or more, you can help kids in hospital get access to video games—and get some sweet toys for yourself, too, including Lego Star Wars – The Complete Saga. Before we go any further, know that some of these comments you’re about to see refer to the Tweet you see above, which was Very Bad and which – along with the GTA leak – prompted many developers to quit (or dig up) many of these shots. First up is Control lead designer Paul Ehreth, who tweeted earlier today: Since graphics are the first thing completed in a video game and CONTROL has won many awards for excellence in graphics, here are shots from the beginning of development 🙂 CONTROL – Early Production Footage (Finished Graphics) The team behind Cult of the Lamb also teased the “first thing finished” tweet: Then we have Frozen Synapse, which for a year before becoming one of the most important strategy games of all time was a BBC Micro adventure game: Here’s what Sea of Thieves looked like in 2014 (which is four years before its final release): One of the funniest/best was shared by Immortality’s Sam Barlow, who says “this is what IMMORTALITY looked like for the first 2 years where we were focused on balancing the AI and combat gameplay”: Here’s what this scene looked like in the final game: In addition to developers sharing their own work, here are some more notable (and rare) examples of studios sharing footage during development: God of War: Baldur Fight Prototype Project A: Riot’s Tactical FPS Announcement | Riot Pls: 10th Anniversary Edition – League of Legends
