Earlier today, the Internet became briefly abuzz with displeasure at the sight of a new trailer for Activision'sThe Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, a first-person shooter based on the AMC TV series. Mainly, this displeasure was centered around the fact that it was a very, very bad trailer. Abysmal, even. The game appeared to be in a very early state, with missing sound effects, plasticky looking zombies, janky animations, and an editing process that appeared to have been at best, rushed.

Now we know why that last thing was the case, at least. PR representatives working on the game confirmed to us tonight that the trailer itself was not edited by anyone at Activision or its agencies, but rather, the work of some overzealous fan.

"That trailer that’s going around on ‘TWDSurvivalInstinct’ channel isn’t official," the rep told us, "It is a fan edit. It looks like they pulled gameplay from the first reveal which was on IGN’s Up at Noon last week."

Indeed, the footage shown in the trailer was clearly taken from the above linked interview, where snippets of the game were shown. That footage was remarked as being from an in-development build, though exactly how far along it was wasn't made clear.

I'll admit that I'm somewhat conflicted as to how to feel about any of this. For one, apologies from me for buying into this. We were hardly the only site to fall for the fan edit, but that's no excuse. We got duped...sort of.

See, that's the thing. Sure, the shoddy editing is explained away, but I don't think that was exactly anyone's issue with the game as shown. It was more that the game looked so far from ready for prime time that showing it in such a state appeared a strange, perhaps ill-considered decision. As of right now, Survival Instinct doesn't have a set release date outside of the greater scope of "2013." So, hey, let's just hope that release date doesn't turn out to be something really crazy, like, say, the March mid-season return of the TV series. There's no way it'll be ready by then, right?

Here's the video, if you still have any interest in watching it.

Earlier today, the Internet became briefly abuzz with displeasure at the sight of a new trailer for Activision'sThe Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, a first-person shooter based on the AMC TV series. Mainly, this displeasure was centered around the fact that it was a very, very bad trailer. Abysmal, even. The game appeared to be in a very early state, with missing sound effects, plasticky looking zombies, janky animations, and an editing process that appeared to have been at best, rushed.

Now we know why that last thing was the case, at least. PR representatives working on the game confirmed to us tonight that the trailer itself was not edited by anyone at Activision or its agencies, but rather, the work of some overzealous fan.

"That trailer that’s going around on ‘TWDSurvivalInstinct’ channel isn’t official," the rep told us, "It is a fan edit. It looks like they pulled gameplay from the first reveal which was on IGN’s Up at Noon last week."

Indeed, the footage shown in the trailer was clearly taken from the above linked interview, where snippets of the game were shown. That footage was remarked as being from an in-development build, though exactly how far along it was wasn't made clear.

I'll admit that I'm somewhat conflicted as to how to feel about any of this. For one, apologies from me for buying into this. We were hardly the only site to fall for the fan edit, but that's no excuse. We got duped...sort of.

See, that's the thing. Sure, the shoddy editing is explained away, but I don't think that was exactly anyone's issue with the game as shown. It was more that the game looked so far from ready for prime time that showing it in such a state appeared a strange, perhaps ill-considered decision. As of right now, Survival Instinct doesn't have a set release date outside of the greater scope of "2013." So, hey, let's just hope that release date doesn't turn out to be something really crazy, like, say, the March mid-season return of the TV series. There's no way it'll be ready by then, right?

Here's the video, if you still have any interest in watching it.

That's a relief, but I'm still not going to get my hopes too high.

Okay. Well thank explains why the trailer itself was made so poorly. That was baffling.

Still looks like it uses the Warz engine to me... which is some other game's engine... THE PLOT THICKENS

Even if its not a trailer, its game footage. And that footage looks like garbage.

Good lord, that IGN host is so annoying.

Even if it wasn't an official trailer, that gameplay was still officially released, and the game still looks godawful. 

The news was that the game looks like hot garbage, and that is no less true now.

should the game really be considered a first person 'shooter'? there was very little shooting based on what the video shows, and I feel the game wouldn't feel like "The Walking Dead" if you were able to use guns often.

Two things. 
1. I hope all the stuff that was shown was from a much earlier unpolished build, kind of like the leaked Duke Nukem Forever stuff that came out showing gameplay with fake sounds added in. 
2. This better not be a full price product. Charging 5 bucks an episode for the Telltale game and charging 60 bucks for an FPS cash-in is very, very wrong

Good editing will not make this look good.

I think this is the best looking game this generation, the models looks bar none. The gameplay looks dynamic and revolutionary.

I think saying an "overzealous fan" did this is sort of silly, because, really, does this game that is going to suck (let's be honest here) have any fans? How can someone be a fan of an unreleased game? What person in their right mind would be a "fan" of an Activision-published licensed zombie FPS? Because - let's face it - no game will receive more care, funding, and marketing than an Activision-published licensed zombie FPS that doesn't have anything to do with Call of Duty.

@Fobwashed: YouTube channel. I'll admit freely I did not research this one as vigorously as I normally would, mostly because quite a few other sites had it up already. Hence why I apologized in the story for getting duped. I shoulda been more thorough.

@fargofallout: Well, whoever did it also created a fake official youtube channel and a fake Facebook marketing page, so if not a fan, then certainly an overzealous...something?

How does this game have 'fans'?

@fargofallout said:

How can someone be a fan of an unreleased game?

Couldn't they just be a fan of The Walking Dead in general?

@RobertOrri said:

Good lord, that IGN host is so annoying.

He's been on the bombcast before

@fargofallout said:

How can someone be a fan of an unreleased game?

Couldn't they just be a fan of The Walking Dead in general?

I'm really glad this turned out the be a fake. The alternative was too depressing.

Looks like their Twitter account got "hacked" if you know what I mean.

For a bunch of users that have seen a lot of content on the development of games at this point, I'm saddened by the harsh attitude towards the footage shown. I thought it was common knowledge in these parts that games don't really come together until the end of the development cycle, and with clearly so much left to do it's unfair to be so critical so early.

This is going to be downloadable right?

Unreleased game looks rough. More at 11.

@Brendan said:

For a bunch of users that have seen a lot of content on the development of games at this point, I'm saddened by the harsh attitude towards the footage shown. I thought it was common knowledge in these parts that games don't really come together until the end of the development cycle, and with clearly so much left to do it's unfair to be so critical so early.

I concur

Okay, that explains the unimpressive trailer edit, but it does not explain the bad gameplay. If the developer felt comfortable enough to show that then it means they must be far enough in development that the game will pretty much be like what was shown.

Now I feel kinda bad for snarking at it in the comments.

@Deusoma said:

Now I feel kinda bad for snarking at it in the comments.

Don't be. This game will suck regardless.

Needs more Carley.

@Brendan said:

For a bunch of users that have seen a lot of content on the development of games at this point, I'm saddened by the harsh attitude towards the footage shown. I thought it was common knowledge in these parts that games don't really come together until the end of the development cycle, and with clearly so much left to do it's unfair to be so critical so early.

I'm sorry, but this trailer is special. When I LITERALLY can't tell the difference between your 2013 Walking Dead game and an HD Remake of 2005's abysmal Road to Fiddler's Green, there are problems that cannot be fixed with more development time.

Also, they DID release this footage to the general public, just on an IGN show, so they were inviting all this criticism. If the game looks that shitty, don't show it off. Even if they felt they needed to get ahead of the Telltale Walking Dead GOTY Hype Train, this was not the right course of action to take.

@fargofallout said:

I think saying an "overzealous fan" did this is sort of silly, because, really, does this game that is going to suck (let's be honest here) have any fans? How can someone be a fan of an unreleased game? What person in their right mind would be a "fan" of an Activision-published licensed zombie FPS? Because - let's face it - no game will receive more care, funding, and marketing than an Activision-published licensed zombie FPS that doesn't have anything to do with Call of Duty.

Plenty of people are fans of games that haven't come out yet. Excited for BioShock Infinite or Last of Us? Then you're a fan of an unreleased game. I'm purely using the term fan instead of "anticipator" or "anticipatee". Has in, someone who anticipates something.

Considering all the weird nonsense that has gone on with Resident Evil 1.5 over the years and people pretending to have copies of the game to the point of releasing fake screenshots and trailers, then I could definitely see somebody faking a TWD trailer. Hell, YouTube is full of fake trailers for Grand Theft Auto V and "Mass Effect 4" and "Halo 5".

They can raise Stanley Kubrick from the dead and that trailer won't look good. If it's an early build that looks that bad, why release any footage at all at this point?

@SomeDeliCook: This is Activision, the publisher who was first to charge $60 for a PC game and put out a Call of Duty game on Vita that was priced $10 more than any other Vita game.

Well you got duped into believe it's official, but you weren't duped into thinking the game itself (at least in it's current state) looks like hot doodie.

will certainly keep an open mind- but it really doesn't change the fact that this game will have a helluva lot to prove come release time. i'm full-up on first-person zombie shooters.

@Alex said:

@Fobwashed: YouTube channel. I'll admit freely I did not research this one as vigorously as I normally would, mostly because quite a few other sites had it up already. Hence why I apologized in the story for getting duped. I shoulda been more thorough.

Hey Alex, I went ahead and deleted my comment after reading the PAR apology and how deep this "trailer" got its hooks in. Now I'm more curious as to whether or not the facebook site that's linked to the youtube page is legitimate. Considering that Activision’s own social media manager Dan Amrich posted the thing on his blog thinking it was real, I'm hard pressed to have any sort of hard feelings at all on your source/fact checking on this one =) Keep up the good fight!

Eh, reminded the world it exists. Given how much I loved the Telltale game I'll at least pay attention to impressions of this.

@Brendan said:

For a bunch of users that have seen a lot of content on the development of games at this point, I'm saddened by the harsh attitude towards the footage shown. I thought it was common knowledge in these parts that games don't really come together until the end of the development cycle, and with clearly so much left to do it's unfair to be so critical so early.

There's a pretty big difference between "these graphics look a little bit early" and "this game looks super boring." That Walking Dead footage looks dull, and no advanced shaders and lighting would change that. Like I said in the comments on the video, I feel really bad for the team making that game.

@ILikePopCans said:

@Brendan said:

For a bunch of users that have seen a lot of content on the development of games at this point, I'm saddened by the harsh attitude towards the footage shown. I thought it was common knowledge in these parts that games don't really come together until the end of the development cycle, and with clearly so much left to do it's unfair to be so critical so early.

I concur

Normally I would totally agree, but this is Activision with a licensed title. I'd love to be surprised by them, but they have one of the worst track records in this department. People were ready to tear this game apart before we saw a single screenshot for.. maybe not a good reason, but an understandable reason.

Unofficial or not, the game looks like crap right now. From the ridiculously bad graphics to the completely uninspired gameplay, nothing about that video was encouraging.

To be honest, now that I know it was a fake trailer made of pre-release footage, I have a slightly-higher-than-expected opinion of the things I saw.

The way the zombies seemed to quickly swarm after you, and the way that you clearly had no recourse to deal with all of them other than making a hole in the crowd and trying to push through before it's too late seemed much more true to the style of zombie movies and fiction-- or even the opening of Resident Evil 2-- than something like Dead Island, Dead Rising, or Left 4 Dead, which all boil down to you killing everything in sight.

Not necessarily saying it looked good! But it had that going for it, which would seem to speak well to what they're trying to accomplish.

I don't want to be too controversial, but I don't think this game is going to be very good at all.

Isn't the first game to look like dog shit early in the dev cycle. Not to say I have any hope or interest in it.

I'll agree with Alex and others that the trailer may not have been official but that gameplay was and Activision should know better than to show off a game in that state.

That's a relief - but I'm still not holding my breath for this game.

I said it in the trailer, I'll say it here. Norman Reedus was fucking PUMPED by this trailer so it's got at least one sale right there.

I'm pretty hyped for this game. Hate the subtitle though. Sounds so... hokey.

Uh didn't they teach you to check sources in journalism school?