‘Don’t think this is a game’ – New shooter looks so real, now the creator had to prove it

But there are also critical voices among the comments. Some speak of the post-processing of real recordings, others accuse the developers of cheating, similar to the survival shooter The Day Before, which according to numerous observers only exists as trailer material. Likewise, what is shown is viewed critically with regard to the depiction of possible police violence.

The responsible studio DRAMA has now reacted to the allegations, but could not refute all of them.

How long is Unrecord actually in development?

The hype surrounding Unrecord is not fundamentally new. As early as mid-October 2022, the mainly responsible developer Alexandre Spindler published a video for a prototype of the shooter, where a police officer is controlled from a body cam perspective:

link to Twitter content

Even then, the echo was Esports Extrasntic, tens of millions of players looked at the snippet and were fascinated by the desEsports Extrasof the surroundings and the authentic fisheye look.

According to a recent statement on Steam, the reactions of viewers are also responsible for the fact that Unrecord has made great strides in recent months and that the team behind it is working flat out.

This is noticeable in the much more realistic animations of the main character, who authentically reloads her weapon and wobbles when aiming. In addition, the lighting benefits enormously from a switch of the Unreal Engine used to the fifth version, previously it was the fourth.

You can find more about the UE5 here:

In addition, the current trailer probably uses fewer or no more off-the-shelf assets. The first prototype still showed an abandoned Russian building that is available for purchase in the Unreal store. The current trailer appears to show mostly self-created environments.

Maker responds to allegations of fraud

Due to the believable animations and the extremely authentic look, many players assumed that the trailer was pre-rendered in Unreal Engine 5 or manipulated afterwards or that it could be a rail shooter, i.e. the protagonist is not controlled at all can.

Spindler responded with a short video showing the opening sequence of the recently released trailer and a large warehouse. In both scenes, he was free to move, shoot, and reload:

link to Twitter content

So the gameplay is indeed real, although it may be far from complete. He couldn’t show many mechanics, so even an Early Access release should be far in the future.

As long as there is a publication at all and doubters are not right after all. Finally, the studio might have knit the trailer around even the most rudimentary game elements to give the appearance of a real game.

That’s what the team says about the criticism of the scenario

We in the editorial department and also some players* expressed a queasy feeling about the explosive scenario of witnessing a police officer in a firefight. No game has ever been so close to real recordings, which could also appear in the form of US news events.

With regard to the topic of violence, DRAMA explains that no political agenda is being pursued and that the French studio is not influenced by regional (in this case American) politics.

The pixelated faces reinforce the realistic impression even more, but that can also be overkill.

In addition, the developers say they exclude any form of discrimination, racism and violence against women and minorities. Players should first wait and see how the plot of the finished game is structured. So far, however, there have been no signs of this, DRAMA is still very vague about it.