Reddit gamers call out a viral AC Black Flag comparison video for intentionally dropping the original's graphics to minimum to sell the remake. Read the drama!
Fellow devs and gamers, we are no strangers to the dark arts of video game marketing. Recently, the internet has been busy roasting a viral Reddit post with nearly 10k upvotes. The post featured a GIF comparing the graphics of the original Assassin's Creed: Black Flag with a supposedly leaked/teased Remake. It would have been just another hype train if internet detectives hadn't spotted a massive load of BS behind the shiny pixels.
For those who were up till 3 AM fixing memory leaks and missed the drama: the GIF shows a pirate ship sailing the ocean. On one side, you have the Remake—sporting pristine water shaders, god rays, and glorious high-res textures. On the other side is the original, looking like an absolute potato with pixelated water and barren surroundings.
At first glance, a casual player might think, "Wow, next-gen hardware is insane!" But wait, reality is often more disappointing than a botched hotfix.
Down in the comment section, the tryhards were quick to decompile the lie.
First came the Nostalgia Goggles phase. Alphaman1236 laughed: "Thinking back, it looked like the second gameplay video. Things really did look so good as a kid." Another user, 1of1000, agreed: "I remember the original looking like the remake lol." We've all been there—PS3 graphics looked like real life to our teenage brains.
But the real killshot came from Cooldudeyo23, who just finished grinding the game: "I just finished the original black flag 100% and it did not look that shitty."
User zergling424 immediately pointed out the exact marketing trick: "They literally lowered the graphics down to minimal and went to the ugliest emptiest part of the map to get a super cherry-picked example."
And to sum up the Ubisoft experience, Hawkwise83 dropped a truth bomb: "Every time I get excited by Ubisoft marketing I remind myself there's probably 10 stupid things they did they are hiding from the trailer that you won't know until release."
From a game dev perspective, slapping some high-end volumetric lighting and PBR materials onto a classic is a great way to sell a Remake. But artificially nerfing the original game to minimum settings just to make the leap look wider? That's just lazy, manipulative marketing.
It's the equivalent of a junior dev purposely breaking an old codebase just so their new PR looks like a lifesaver. Gamers in 2024 aren't noobs. They will boot up their old saves, compare the texture mapping, and ratio you on social media before you can even launch a day-one patch.
So, players, hold your wallets. Don't pre-order based on cherry-picked trailers. You'd be better off getting a game booster designed to reduce game ping and stabilize gaming networks for players around the world to enjoy the original masterpiece in peace rather than falling for this P2W hype machine.
Stay sharp, GG, and back to debugging we go!
