10 Massively Misleading Trailers NOTHING Like The Final Game

2. BioShock Infinite

I really loved BioShock Infinite, for the record, but there’s a fair few things that don’t add up between its trailer and the final product.

The visual design is pretty spot on but otherwise the announcement trailer was a somewhat eerie sequence of you falling through the air, spotting Elizabeth and her calling you over on a floating sea of roses before a metallic hand grabs her and you continue plummeting. Irrational’s first early gameplay demonstration depicted a far darker Colombia than the one realised in BioShock Infinite. It’s significantly more cold and lifeless, inhabited by power-wielding villains and feeling far more like BioShock’s Rapture.

The gameplay is similar, but Elizabeth is shown to be an AI companion capable of powerful magic, not just, you know, someone who throws you ammo.

Why Irrational didn’t go down this route is unclear, though we know Infinite’s development wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. Plenty of mechanics and ideas clearly needed to be dropped due to them not being practically feasible with the technology of the time, or the inevitable need to narrow the game’s scope.

Even still, when the game’s that good without its full breadth of ideas you can’t be too upset.