Once, long ago – ten years ago, in fact – Guerrilla Games debuted Killzone 2 with a graphics video that literally looked too good to be true. And it was, it wasn’t real gameplay footage. And while the final product almost came close to realizing the promise of that target render, the sour taste of the false promises made remained, and intensified as we came into this generation, where no single publisher or developer can be taken at face value when it comes to their graphics.
So you would be forgiven for thinking that some trickery was at work behind the absolutely gorgeous and staggering looking Horizon, which debuted at Sony’s E3 show this year, as well. However, Guerrilla’s technical director Michiel v.d. Leeuw is saying that the trailer shown off was all shot in-engine without the use of any CGI.
“In case people were wondering, trailer was shot all in-engine, no cgi. Happy to have announced!” he said on Twitter. Of course, there is difference between in game and in engine, and in engine is just a tricky roundabout of committing to the final game looking anything as good as the trailers make it out to be. When he was called out on this, Leeuw clarified that the footage was in game- all except for the cinematic parts, naturally. “The intro and outro are cinematics rendered in the game engine. Middle part is in-game,” he said.
So… there you have it. It doesn’t seem like they are lying this time. It does seem like they are going to deliver on their graphical promise with Horizon.
That will be worth seeing.