Whenever Ubisoft releases more images and video for The Division, it seems as though the graphical quality continues to drop. Of course that happened with games like Watch Dogs, so it's not that surprising. The game will hopefully look at least somewhat close to its original trailer, though. It's annoying that developers show us better graphics than we're going to receive at announcement.
That's what they always do, and they get away with it pretty easily. It's not surprising though, that way they generate hype for the game, ultimately ending in more pre-orders. It's a common marketing stunt.
I thought it looked pretty amazing in the 2015 E3 game play video I watched. I didn't really notice a graphical decline. I guess I'm part of the people who would forgive that from a developer more easily. The problem is that we're seeing the game too early. Developers probably know already when the videos are released but they have to build game hype. It seems expected that they'll give us something, and a lot of games are critiqued when they don't do enough announcements and early video releases. The way I see it, they're in the process of developing the game so they'll go all out in terms of production, pull all of the stops and go absolutely crazy with their ideas and graphics. I don't think they want to release a less visually stunning version of their game, but they're restricted by the technology. They have to fit the game on a reasonable amount of space so stuff gets scaled back and things eliminated. It's a normal editing process really, we're just seeing it through these video releases.
Basicall what Fuzyon said. They were generating hype, got their preorders in, now they are lowering the graphics so a lot more PC users will be able to play on bucket machines. Honestly they shouldn't be droping the quality that much since its a console game too though.
I'm betting it's also a function of the developers wrestling with the people in charge. I'm sure the majority of game developers would love to make their games consistently pretty, but they're not always given enough time to do so by 'the suits', if you want to call them that. So they release a gorgeous early trailer that they really put their all into, one that only features a few super-polished areas, and then get forced to scale back as resources are gobbled up and corners are cut. I'm sure it will still look really nice in the end. But yeah, now that preorders are secured, why bother polishing the whole bundle?
I think the graphics will be adjustable so the ones that play on "bucket machines" will have the option to lower the quality where it becomes playable. We'll have to see the official videos.
Yes, this goes in line with my response that I don't think that they are doing it nefariously, it's really in terms of the developers vs. "the suits" and system requirements and restrictions. It's not the first time that the videos shown don't match the final product (Witcher 3: Wild Hunt anyone?), but realistically it really is unreasonable for anyone to expect a game not to change while in development. It's just too bad because we get our hopes up.
They need to make a video showing in game options, audio and video specifically and maybe HUD options. This would put a lot of questions to rest.
There are a few game play videos. The issue again is that it's still in development, so even if they show us videos, it may still not reflect what the final product will be. A lot can change from now until Q1 2016.
As Cyborg Superman said, we still have to wait before they finish up their options. They might add a l ot of features along the road, I guess we'll most likely see a concrete options menu when beta comes around.
I think it still looks fine honestly. Sure, Ubisoft has a really bad habit of showing games that can't run anywhere else other than their supercomputers when they're still in development and that's a dumb thing to do, but it's useless to complain because I'm sure that if they really wanted to, they wouldn't gimp their own game on purpose. Games change through development, that's a fact. But if the game's actually good I don't think anyone will go crazy over a downgrade.
I don't mind the graphics all that much to be honest. As long as the game itself works and the gameplay is great, you won't hear me complaining. Graphics has always been one of my last priorities when it comes to games.
It's Ubisoft. After the shenanigans they pulled with Watch_Dogs, people aren't that surprised to see a graphics decline. In fact, I think people are expecting a graphics decline. Also, let's be serious: nobody expects graphics to look like they do in trailers nowadays.
True, and not just Ubisoft. It's pretty much well known by every gamer that the games never look as good as they do in pre-release videos. Back in the day, we used to get "tricked" by cinematic videos that weren't even made using the game engine so they'd look super awesome but were just cut-scenes made by a company that didn't even work on the game. The actual game wouldn't look anything like those initial cut scenes at all.
People are still getting fooled by those cinematic videos even today. Look at all the console exclusive trailers which are rendered on PC, which fool console users that the game is actually looking that well. When the game ships, and they see that the console hardware simply can't sustain the graphics (therefore, they are downgraded badly), they complain.
I don't even understand why they still do it. We're in 2015 and videogames look so good already, that we don't need CG videos anymore I think. CG videos show absolutely nothing at all about how the game is and when I can I just avoid them and wait for the gameplay trailers.
@Ishmael I imagine that they still do it because it does equal sales ultimately. I guess it depends on how it's presented... Anyone can usually tell that a cinematic trailer won't be what the actual game-play will be like.
Graphics are really important though. No one wants to play a game that has horrible graphics. They should know better and actually care enough to put out the best for their customers.
Super top notch graphics isn't exactly a good thing when the story is terrible though. Sure, it'd work for some, but not for players like me. If they could just balance it I would be reallllly happy.
