It is that time of year again, time for the big releases to come out of the closet and seduce us with their trailers and stripteases. This year it is quite big, as we head into the ninth console generation following this lackluster series of open-worlds, remasters, remakes, and redundant repetitive tripe. The generation is also the inception of the term “bullshot,” a term used to describe screenshots that aren’t representative of the release of the game they are from in the first place. Typically they are the highest graphical setting the game is meant to have towards the end of development. However, when the game is released, graphics are reduced to level out on several systems for the sake of performance.

Sometimes this is done by a large margin, but sometimes it only a slight reduction. Several developers have a realistic view of what their games can and will do on specific systems, others don’t. One that doesn’t care about a realistic view is Ubisoft, known far and wide for their explosion of this phenomenon back in 2013-14 for the release of Watch_Dogs. They would up the graphics of the entire game to look like the most fantastic of leaps in console generation graphics, which ultimately turned out to be a load of bullshot.

Look at any of the promotional shots of The Witcher 3 in comparison, and you’ll notice they are a lot more inline with the final product. Play a bit and you’ll notice there is a large disparity in it running with that same graphical fidelity, however, it doesn’t have as much of a gap between the two. This is, in a small way, a version of a much more realistic (though easily noticeable) example of a bullshot in gaming. They are everywhere you can think of: DOOM, Far Cry, and Control, for example. So, it shouldn’t be surprising when “gameplay” from a Ubisoft game isn’t really that.

With the recent announcement of the latest Assassin’s Creed non-political editions, “Abuse,” “Loot,” and Wear a funny Hat, it brings Vikings to the series. Sure, Pope Adrian, the 1st through Honorius the 2nd, or Alexander the 2nd (depending on your persuasion), had no idea about the Knights Templars. The Templars weren’t even recognized until 1139 by Pope Innocent the 2nd. The adventure series turned massive RPG with stupid microtransactions caused, shall we say, a bit of a kerfuffle recently with its “gameplay” trailer that just wasn’t. It was the crescendo of the bullshot.

The thing is, graphics shouldn’t matter. For the whole femtosecond that we see a shiny nipple or gentleman’s vegetable in games and analyze that it is 0.001% prettier than the last time, it doesn’t really matter. I said it recently in an editorial; shooting for 8K with this coming console generation is stupid because we can already see well enough with 1080p and 4K with our dodgy eyes back on our couches. I’d like the edges to be a bit smoother and a couple of other things, but I’d rather have the same graphic fidelity we have with higher frame rates than a slightly shinier David Cage android.

The reason this is important to many is the idea that we want to see gameplay when games are being advertised. That’s the whole selling point of games, their interactive capabilities for our cooperation. The problem with demanding to see gameplay in an Assassin’s Creed game is, we know it already. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is following the mold of Origins and Odyssey before it, which is to say, the same general idea for gameplay, but with a different skin. We’ve swapped the beautiful Mediterranean sea for Skyrim, the North sea, and the wrong side of England just so Finland’s greatest export can rock on a calendar.

There is a problem with everyone chattering on about Scott Stapp’s bottom, which is a solid Assassin’s Creed and Creed joke in itself. He’s not the only one to forego showing gameplay. Everything else in the Xbox cavalcade of cinematic nonsense revealed as much about gameplay as your dad trying to work a webcam, to only realize those shows work one way. H.R. Giger’s Striptease, otherwise known as Scorn, didn’t reveal any new gameplay for the “next-gen,” but has had some actual gameplay as early as three years ago. It appeared alongside sadist pornography, Agony and Succubus, on YouTube.

In fact, the only proper gameplay trailer from the entire showcase was Bright Memory. Sorry, no, that’s Bright Memory Infinite, a next-generation version of Bright Memory, which released back in March on Steam. It looks like a solo-developed Crysis. It is pretty and is the only game to show gameplay because it stole it from 2006 and gave it that ray-tracing that the most boring of people are on about.

Everything else is the climax of bullshots; a whole lot of pretty, animated, graphically-enhanced bits of the games with no actual gameplay. Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 looks to be the most realistic (ignoring Madden: another one) of them all, with the bits around the edges looking as rough as I do after a sugar binge. I assume when it is released, every reviewer will call it the best game they have ever played, but it still has major flaws in presentation. It was wrong to call a majority of those trailers gameplay, either on the part of the studios or the people at Xbox.

What doesn’t help is a complete lack of tempered expectations by those who want to see just another bit of that game they want to play. I can watch the hours of Watch Dogs Legion gameplay that has been released until I’m blue in the face and my wrists have fallen off, but I know it is not going to be perfect. I love Assassin’s Creed: Lesbos Edition, and I’ll talk about the Souls-like fights with bounty hunters all day long, but as fun as that is, many don’t want that out of a game. Someone a little more “casual” to games (for lack of a better term) might not know how to calibrate their expectations. They might not realize that they need to temper expectations of what they are being advertised, and that a pretty picture doesn’t represent the quality of a game. They aren’t stupid, they just lack a wider grasp of the medium and its quirks.

Too often we’re told, “Look at this, it looks magnificent; Ignore the gameplay that doesn’t look dissimilar from anything else you’ve seen, these graphics!” Yes, Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, and many others feature gorgeous depictions of grim and dull things, carefully worked on by hundreds of artists. However, the bullshots as a result of these countless hours of hard work do not matter when it is just a postcard you are allowed to walk in for a bit. Death Stranding is wonderful to look at a lot of the time and fabulous to walk around in, but there is a lack of game in it.

In short, yes, bullshots are a useless pile of shot that fell out a bull, but we’re also letting ourselves believe that they matter. As I’ve said already in this very article; this in-engine footage being labeled “gameplay” by several studios and Microsoft themselves is the culmination of what this phenomenon was building to. Rightfully call it out when you see it, but also keep in mind the knowledge that it’s not just in games you want to enjoy. It is in the vulgar obscenities that H.R. Giger used to get himself to sleep. Hold that anger towards those who actively oversell their games, not just Ubisoft and No Man’s Sky, the prime offenders.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.