7 Misleading Video Game Trailers that Looked Nothing Like the Final Product

7 Misleading Video Game Trailers that Looked Nothing Like the Final Product

Over the years, several misleading video game trailers have fooled consumers into buying into something that ended up looking nothing like the final product. Here, we’re recapping the most famous of these trailers.

No Man’s Sky

Hello Games has really turned No Man’s Sky around since its ill-fated launch back in 2016, and they deserve a lot of credit for that. But there’s no denying that the original trailers and rhetoric surrounding the game was more than a little misleading.

Perhaps it was a case of inexperience in dealing with media attention on the part of Sean Murray, or maybe even that Hello Games simply just underestimated their workload?

Regardless, No Man’s Sky arrived without its promised multiplayer, and with what was a fairly one-dimensional survival gameplay loop.

Hello Games has worked tirelessly to expand the game’s design to incorporate its original promises and some, but sadly, it will ultimately go down in gaming history as an example of false advertisement.

Watch Dogs

Watch Dogs had a lot of people excited when Ubisoft first debuted its trailer at E3 2013. It promised a next-generation of graphical fidelity married to an exciting new IP, which had fans and critics practically falling over themselves. For a lot of people, Watch Dogs epitomized a feeling that gaming was entering a new age of realism and immersion.

Unfortunately, what we got was anything but seminal. Watch Dogs’ gorgeous visuals took a heavy downgrade by the time it finally arrived on the new console generation. What’s more, its narrative premise, characters, and gameplay weren’t at all compelling. It’s remembered as a watered down version of what was originally shown in trailers, and perhaps a waste of an IP that had plenty of potential.

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Ah, Colonial Marines –the butt of so many jokes that speak to poor quality video games. But seriously, Colonial Marines looked so damn good before we’d experienced the reality of actually playing it. This was a title that promised to deliver a sumptuous combination of horror and action, just like the iconic Aliens movie.

Early trailers showed us glimpses of incredible graphics, an eerily ambient space setting, and terrifying hordes of Aliens. The final product, though, not only failed completely to encompass any of James Cameron’s iconic film, it was a total and utter flop of video game.

A heavy graphical downgrade, dismal gameplay, and an embarrassing amount of technical issues –Colonial Marines ended up a huge blot on the franchises’ resume.

Kinect

Hot off the back of the Nintendo Wii’s huge success with motion controls, Xbox was keen to cash-in on the trend with its own version. The Xbox One was to pioneer this initiative moving into the next console generation back in 2013. Kinect, it was announced, would be bundled with the Xbox One, and it would revolutionize the way gamers interacted with gaming content.

Developer Peter Molyneux kinect game Milo was the poster boy for the new technology, and the trailers showcased a mindblowing advancement in AI. Players could talk and gesture to young Milo as if he were a real person –it was truly revolutionary stuff.

Well, at least in theory. Milo, the Kinect’s most impressive software, never actually launched, ad the whole platform failed to achieve its mandate. Molyneux himself later described the whole Kinect saga at Xbox as a “trainwreck”.

Halo 5

Halo 5 was the series’ big debut on Xbox One, but it’s not remembered particularly fondly, especially in regards to its single-player campaign.

In the lead up to its anticipated launch, Microsoft ran a substantial marketing campaign to tease what was touted as a poignant and engrossing narrative experience. A compelling tale of betrayal with protagonist Master Chief at its center was more than hinted at.

In fact, there was a whole “Hunt the Truth” audio tape release incorporated into the marketing campaign which highlighted a whole heap of atrocities Master Chief supposedly committed; and an epic showdown with Locke was alluded to in CGI trailers.

Most of this never actually made it into the game, and Halo 5’s campaign was instead a rather dull a by the numbers affari, which came as a huge disappointment.

Killzone 2

Sony was very keen to make an impression at E3 2005. Specifically, to demonstrate the graphical prowess of the upcoming PS3 console, which they chose to do with a scintillating Killzone 2 trailer from Guerrilla Games. The trailer was advertised as “running in real time” on PS3, and its spectacle certainly had its intended effect.

Killzone 2 caused a huge stir, hyping fans for the next console generation and sending anticipation for both the game and the PS3 through the roof. The only problem was, the Killzone 2 footage wasn’t really in-game footage at all.

Only recently has Guerrilla Games spoken of the saga behind what would later be angrily flagged as false advertising on the part of the publisher and developer. As it turned out, the footage was an “internal version” that was never intended to be showcased to the public.

Dead Island

Deep Silver’s marketing campaign for Dead Island famously showcased a trailer with a narrative tone that was completely at odds with the final product. The trailer, a poignant and moving CGI scene in which a group of young tourists are eaten by a zombie horde teed gamers expectations up for a heartfelt survival journey. In reality, though, Dead Island was a tongue-in-cheek zombie shoot em’ up that more closely aligned itself tonally with the whimsical and silly.