Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it’s shutting down The Initiative studio and canceling the game Perfect Dark. A report then surfaced, suggesting that the game’s Xbox Games Showcase 2024 trailer was fake. But that’s not fully true. A former dev said the demo shown was a playable vertical slice.
Adam McDonald, a level designer who worked on the 2024 version of the game, said the demo was made using the game engine and could be played. It wasn’t representative of the final product. But, it was a vertical slice, and everything we saw in the trailer was in-engine.
Now, what’s a vertical slice? For those who don’t know, back in the E3 days, publishers were creating special demos of their games. Those demos had in-engine assets, and they were faking some stuff to make things more exciting. Two good examples of misleading vertical slices are Watch_Dogs and Anthem.
The big difference between a vertical slice and a fake trailer is that the latter is not playable in any way. It’s a mess of different sections that can barely work together. For instance, the trailer for Abandoned was a fake trailer. The E3 2001 trailer for Duke Nukem Forever was also a fake trailer. And, in my opinion, the full-on destruction system of Crackdown 3 was a HUGE BIG LIE. Or the E3 2009 Project Natal Milo Tech Demo.
According to Adam, most of the fighting, parkour, hacking, and sneaky gameplay were real in the demo. But Crystal Dynamics and The Initiative did fake a few things to make the game look better than it actually was at the time. Still, this wasn’t a full fake trailer. It just wasn’t representative of what the game looked or played like at that time. So, it had some fake stuff (like all vertical slices), but it was not all fake.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Most of the “E3 Demos” are vertical slices. Even the 3D demos of your favourite games were “fake” demos. Cyberpunk 2077? Yes, it was. The Witcher 3? Yup. Ghost Recon Future Soldier? Of course and it was.
Ubisoft was well known for misleading vertical slices, which is why the one that was criticized the heaviest when it came to video-game downgrades. Even new games have been shown with misleading trailers. Remember the trailers for STALKER 2? Or for Starfield? Or for Dying Light 2?
What I mean is that there’s a big difference between a vertical slice and a totally fake trailer. Still, both are inexcusable. Devs shouldn’t fake things just to make their games look better than they really are. They should show the game as it truly is during development. And if it’s not ready yet, they should wait until it is before showing anything.
Here’s Adam’s full message, so go ahead and take a look at it.
“This demo. It is actually in-engine. I was one of three level designers that worked on it. It worked best if you played it the way the person playing in the video plays it, but it still worked even if you didn’t hit the marks perfectly.”
“There’s some fake stuff in it, and the real gameplay systems shown off worked juuust enough to look good in this video. We were rapidly making real design decisions so as to not knowingly lie to players about what the game will be. The parkour is all real, the hacking/deception is mostly real.”
“The combat is “real” in that someone had to really do all that stuff in the video, but it’s set up to be played exactly that way and didn’t play well if you played it a different way.”
“I’m seeing big controversy over “THIS WHOLE THING WAS FAKE” and it’s annoying me, so I wanted to say something.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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So… it really was fake and now they're using weasel wording for damage control.
They wanted to protect the chin.
It takes some real imagination to conceptualize a human being that uses the term "DEI" seriously. It's just hard to imagine there are actually people in the world that stupid, even with daily examples like you.
Google "vertical slice" and learn something.
“The combat is “real” in that someone had to really do all that stuff in the video, but it’s set up to be played exactly that way and didn’t play well if you played it a different way.”
This is exactly what normal people mean when they call the whole thing fake. Vertical slices are FAKE by the standards of the end consumer. Vertical slices only have value to developers and publishers. They are prototypes with no value to the customer. They are "fake games". When the public sees vertical slices they always end up believing there's a full game that actually plays like the footage they saw. And more often than not this effect is intended by the publisher and developer.
And as AI improves expect more fakery where an entire damn trailer will just be AI generated slop for a build that doesn't even exist at all.
AI will be better than the human developers.
That’s like saying pee is better than poo.
Yup.
Also, don't forget the misleading marketing screenshots used to falsely over hype the promotional images/visuals in some games as of late, aka, the so-called "bullshots".
The usage of Bullshots to exaggerate the graphical fidelity is also a fairly common practice, especially promotional "deceptive" screenshots.
….
We in 2025 and people still don't understand the difference between a showcase demo and an actual game.
Just cause the developers showed gameplay in a conference, does not mean they have a full game ready to release, far from it.
Plus Microsoft did not start this studio nor development, and they in their right to stop wasting money in a project that was clearly not working.
Thanks for the water is wet news John! Here's a novel idea, if you don't like being lied to, don't listen to liars? What i am saying with this is, stop watching trailers, teasers and the like altogheter. Even a "real" trailer can't be trusted since you are getting like 2 minutes of what, 10-20 hour games, and it's not like they are letting you watch the boring parts…
We in 2025 and people still don't understand the difference between a showcase demo and an actual game.
Just cause the developers showed gameplay in a conference, does not mean they have a full game ready to release, far from it.
Plus Microsoft did not start this studio nor development, they in their right to stop wasting money in a project that was clearly not working.
Microsoft has been at fault for so many exclusives that ended up canceled and severely cut down or delayed that are the fault of Microsoft's mismanagement or failure to manage at all.
When you get a job and start investing in a project, tell how it goes when you bleeding money in a project that is going nowhere.
We have a fine example on costumer side with Star Citizen, where millions where given away and we still don't have a finished project a decade later.
Not to mention Microsoft did not sold the IP, they can always bring it back later with a proper development team.
I simply cannot sympatize with this teams, when is clear they were struggling with consistency and communication (which is a recurring theme in big teams like this).
Then you guys go Microsoft this and Microsoft that, but Sony doesn't have half of the Microsoft portfolio, you can count with one hand the games Sony released on Playtation, while Microsoft has dozens slated and released so far.
So Software wise Xbox is stronger than ever.
When you get a job and start investing in a project, let me know how it goes when you're bleeding money into something that’s going nowhere.
We have a clear example on the consumer side with Star Citizen, where millions were poured in and we still don’t have a finished product over a decade later.
Not to mention, Microsoft didn’t sell the IP, they can always bring it back later with a proper development team.
I simply can’t sympathize with these teams when it’s clear they were struggling with consistency and communication (which is a recurring issue in large teams like this).
Then people go, “Microsoft this” and “Microsoft that,” but Sony doesn’t have half the portfolio Microsoft does. You can count on one hand the games Sony has released on PlayStation recently, while Microsoft has dozens already released or slated for release.
So, software-wise, Xbox is stronger than ever.
Just look at PlatinumGames, who has worked with many games through third parties and all of them, while not great, were complete and polished games yet the one game they worked with Microsoft on failed to even release.
So you putting words in the developers mouth?
That says it all, but we can go further, the IP was fully Microsoft idea and belongs to Microsoft, it was Platinum that step up and said they wanted to do it, and failed,
Microsoft can still be blamed for trying to buy up half the industry only to put these studios out to pasture and lock their IP up in a warehouse because at the end of the day they don't know crap about gaming nor do they care about it. Xbox is where games go to die.
Yet Xbox has more than double the portfolio of Playstation and income.
Playstation is selling consoles without games.
But at least PlayStation is selling consoles. But it brings to mind an old Phil Harrison quote: “This is like competing to be the world’s tallest midget”. In the year of our Lord 2025 all consoles are trash and they’re all fighting over swamp land at this point. Who gives a f**k who is #1 in that field because no matter which company wins (here’s a hint: it’s not Microsoft, they’re barely staying alive at this point) their braindead customers lose.
I could go on and on about why that is but if you haven’t figured it out by now then you’re a lost cause and I wish you well when this entire industry finally burns to the ground as it should.
You’re only lost cause, cause as stated the Xbox brand is stronger than ever, while Sony is struggling to remain adrift, to the point they had to sell multiple businesses and are unable to compete when it comes to first party titles.
Which is why their portfolio is non-existant, and Playstation as a Console is all they have to give.
So is clear to me who doesn’t understand what is going on.
You the typical guy in IT that doesn’t evolve and gets left behind, considering how you defending Sony poor business practices, I would be surprised if they remain relevant in the next decade.
This game was revealed with a 100% CG trailer in late 2020 though. Just like State of Decay 3 and Fable months prior…….. 2 games that still have no release dates half a decade later.
What is shocking here is that 3 years after its reveal, they STILL didn't have anything that was close to a real game to show lol.
GOW 2018 was 100% real at E3 2016, from the smooth transition from cutscene to gameplay which is throughout the entire game. People say the final game is a downgrade. Lies. The game is surrounded in fog at the start before you lift it when you get to the centre of Midgard, which in itself is a mind blowing moment, including when you drain the lake more and more as the game goes on.
Nobody will go back up to Kratos' shack and then look at the area with the fog removed then. The 2016 footage had this crazy part inserted at the end which was a teaser for the eagle eyed people that could see all the Norse mythology references in the background like the body of the world serpent. Its not in the final game because it makes no sense to be there.
Its just Microsoft still to this very day that has clear problems with revealing games and it being lies.
You’ve just proven my point: the demo wasn’t CG, this isn’t 2004. What we saw was a typical showcase cut with scripted gameplay sections.
Even Fable was presented using in-engine cutscenes, not CG, contrary to what you’re claiming.
And given your clear preference for Sony, let me remind you of Killzone. That was full CG and was falsely marketed as a demo showcase, which even led to legal trouble.
So as you said, just Sony things. This has nothing to do with Microsoft.
We in 2025 don't understand that if Perfect Dark were in good shape after nearly a decade of developer mismanagement and tens of millions of wasted dollars, we'd be getting it even if it wasn't good so MS could at least recoup some of the dev cost. We lost nothing but a game so bad it closed a studio and a publicly held corporation, whose only reason to exist is make money, said goodbye to millions. I don't know or care if the demo was real, it clearly was nowhere near finished and even MS thought it would be a dud.
*ScamCitizen writing down notes
Aliens Colonial Marines was the biggest example of vertical slice that I recall.
I already called it out as being fake. They couldn't hold on a shot for more than 3 seconds most time. If its not fake, then the game is awkward and crap because that's why edits are done like that. How many edits were in the 2016 GOW reveal trailer that seamlessly went straight into gameplay? Not a single one I believe….. and it ended up winning GOTY and it shows because they had no shame in showing the gameplay.
The exact same thing happened with Indiana Jones. They showed 2 seconds of him using the whip, 2 seconds climbing, 2 seconds punching a guy. Every one of these actions you do in game is a complete mess with the whip looking awkward, boring insanely slow climbing and traversal (using the whip too, its as if he is swinging on it in slow motion and in the actual game the sudden switch to 3rd person for that is silly looking too) and then the clumsy useless AI in every single enemy encounter.
ALL hidden in pre-launch, carefully edited gameplay snippets.
The only other thing I will say about Perfect Dark is, you deserved it Xbots. That's what you get for hyping up ROADMAP games, sing it from the heavens ROADMAP. Half a decade you morons hyped this thing up and all for nothing.
If it were any good and anywhere near done, after nearly a decade of mismanagement and tens of millions of dollars at least, it wouldn't have been cancelled and the studio shuttered. Microsoft is a company and companies exist for one reason, to make money. If they thought this would make them money or even make their money back they already invested, we'd be playing it.