10 of the Most Brutal Video Game Graphics Downgrades in History, From Watch Dogs to Killzone 2

Games change a lot during development, and sometimes the footage we are first shown simply is not representative of the final product. Here are ten of the most brutal downgrades from reveal to launch in gaming history.

Assassin's Creed Unity's E3 2014 reveal promised a Paris that the finished game could not match

When Ubisoft showed off Assassin's Creed Unity at E3 2014, it looked like the perfect showcase for a new generation of consoles. Paris was packed with people, the lighting looked incredible, and the sheer amount of detail in the city was unlike anything the series had shown before.

When the full game came out, there were serious downgrades in the graphics on top of a ton of bugs, and a good portion of the textures would not even load properly. When it was working, Unity still looked good, but certain visual effects, lighting details and environmental elements were nowhere near as impressive as the reveal. The launch also had graphical glitches, performance problems and the infamous facial animation issues that turned some characters into nightmare fuel. For the first next-gen Assassin's Creed game, this was nowhere near what people were hoping for.

Dark Souls 2's dramatic torch lighting system barely survived to launch

This is an interesting case because the downgrade was not the entire game looking worse, it was specifically the lighting. The original demonstrations showed off an incredibly impressive lighting system where torches actually appeared to illuminate environments, dark areas were genuinely dark, and light seemed like it was going to be a genuinely important part of the experience, kind of like Doom 3.

In the final game, a lot of those dramatic lighting effects were simply gone. The environments were brighter and the torch mechanics that had been heavily showcased during development were nowhere near as important in the finished product. The launch version looked good, but nothing close to what the reveal promised. "I don't know what happened here, but there's no denying that Dark Souls 2 had a serious downgrade from reveal to release."

Star Wars Battlefront's 2015 demos went another level beyond the finished game

This is one of the more complicated examples because even after the downgrade, the final Star Wars Battlefront looked amazing. The original footage shown during development was another level of ridiculous, likely because DICE wanted to lean into the techniques it was using and really impress people at reveal, even if those techniques were not going to be widely available at launch.

The final game looked great, but compared to those early demos there were noticeable differences in lighting, environmental detail and overall visual presentation. It was beautiful, but it was not quite the graphical miracle that the original demonstrations suggested it could be.

Aliens: Colonial Marines went from a stunning E3 demo to a rushed, cut-down release

This is one of the most infamous examples of a game looking dramatically better before release than it did once people actually paid for it. The E3 demo was atmospheric, with dramatic lighting, terrifying aliens, and impressive particle effects and destruction.

When the actual game shipped, allegedly there were coding issues and behind-the-scenes fiascos that meant the 1.0 version was a completely different game from the one revealed, and it was not even finished on day one. The launch version had significantly reduced graphical effects, lower quality textures and less impressive lighting. There was a straightforward technical explanation this time: the original demo ran on a high-end PC, while developers had to get the game working on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, toning down AI-related features to make it fit on older hardware.

Development had been rushed to the finish line, and Gearbox apparently thought nobody would care because people were so impressed by the initial reveal. Everybody cared, the game flopped, and it was manipulation. "It wasn't borderline, it was manipulation."

Rainbow Six Siege's cinematic 2014 reveal gave way to a more functional competitive shooter

Unlike some of these games, the final Rainbow Six Siege actually became a massive success. But going back to the original 2014 reveal, the difference is pretty incredible. That demo showed off an incredibly detailed environment, realistic walls, dramatic lighting, and significantly more impressive smoke and particle effects, giving the whole presentation an almost cinematic quality.

The final game was good-looking, but a lot of that visual fidelity was gone. Textures were not as detailed, the lighting engine was clearly different, and environmental effects were reduced as the overall presentation became more functional and competitive. It makes sense for the graphics to be reduced for a competitive game rather than a cinematic one, but that raises the question of why it was revealed as something so cinematic in the first place.

The Division's E3 2013 reveal started Ubisoft's reputation for graphical downgrades

This is where that reputation really started to become hard to ignore. When the first Division game was revealed at E3 2013, it was one of the most impressive looking games in the world at the time. The final version looked very good, but compared to the original E3 presentation there were obvious changes: the lighting was not as dramatic, environmental detail was reduced, effects were less impressive, and the destruction system shown in the original demo was significantly less ambitious.

By the time the game launched in 2016, people were already making comparison videos between the E3 build and the final PC version. Even the PC version at ultra settings could not completely recreate the original presentation. The Division helped establish a very specific phrase in gaming: Ubisoft downgrades. And there was one more game that would make that reputation even more famous.

Watch Dogs' 2012 Chicago reveal promised more than the final game delivered

If you were following gaming around 2012, there is a good chance you remember the Watch Dogs reveal. Ubisoft showed off a version of Chicago that looked almost too good to be true for an open world game, with lighting, rain reflecting off the streets, detailed cars and character models, and a cinematic atmosphere. Most importantly, Ubisoft presented it as gameplay.

The final game was downgraded in every sense. Lighting was dumbed down, shadows were dumbed down, rain and particle effects were barely present, and there was way less color overall. Ubisoft actually disputed the idea that the game had simply been downgraded, explaining that the original footage represented an earlier version and that some rendering settings had been disabled for performance, stability and gameplay reasons. From the perspective of someone who watched the original demo and then played the final game, it was obvious this was one of the most dramatic disappointments in gaming history, and it instilled a distrust of game trailers that would be almost impossible to shake off.

The Witcher 3's 2013 footage showed a vision CD Projekt Red hadn't finished building yet

To be fair, the original footage was not necessarily a finished game, it was showing what CD Projekt Red wanted the game to eventually become, similar to the Witcher 4 footage released more recently. The 2013 Witcher 3 footage showed an incredibly dense, detailed world with a visual quality that seemed almost impossible for a massive open world RPG.

When the final game came out, it was still one of the best looking RPGs ever made, but the difference was noticeable. Some geometry had changed, the lighting and color grading were different, and the foliage even rendered differently, losing that same cinematic appearance. Digital Foundry pointed out that the early footage represented a version of the game much earlier in development and that CD Projekt Red's rendering technology changed substantially during production. This is not necessarily a case of a developer deliberately making a finished game look worse, but strictly comparing the footage shown to the game played, The Witcher 3 belongs on this list.

Black Ops 3's Xbox 360 and PS3 versions cut the entire campaign and ran at half the frame rate

Imagine watching the reveal of a new Call of Duty with a new movement system, futuristic weapons, detailed environments and huge set pieces, and then being told this experience is coming to Xbox 360 and PS3 too. It did not. The last-gen versions of Black Ops 3 were so heavily compromised they were basically not the same game, and they were developed by Beenox and Mercenary Technology rather than Treyarch, which built the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions.

The last-gen versions ran at 30 frames per second instead of 60, with dramatically reduced visual quality, missing environmental details and gone effects. Most importantly, there was no campaign at all. The entire single player campaign Treyarch had spent years developing simply was not included on PS3 and Xbox 360. It was about 60 percent of the full game with far worse graphics, but it was still sold at full price and marketed the same way as the other versions.

Killzone 2's E3 2005 target render took four years to become an actual game

When Sony showed Killzone 2 at E3 2005, people were stunned, and the game looked unbelievable as a way to promote the new PlayStation 3. The problem was the footage was not the final game, it was essentially a target render, a demonstration of what Guerrilla Games wanted Killzone 2 to eventually look like.

When the actual game launched in 2009, four years after that reveal, it looked good but way different. The gap between that demo and the finished game became one of the most famous examples of the distance between pre-release marketing and reality. "Still good, yes, but totally different from the reveal."

Some of these downgrades were intentional, some were by accident, and some, by the account above, were straight up lying.

Which of these downgrades do you think was the most disappointing?