If you've viewed any screenshots of the recent Ubisoft release Trials Rising on the Switch eShop, you might have noticed these images don't match the quality of the visuals in the game. As pointed out by Kotaku, this is because these are clearly shots from another version.
Unfortunately, this is a common practice within the industry, when a company wants to show its new game in the best light, rather than resorting to blurry or grainy images of the real thing. Ubisoft has admittedly been caught out in the past for showing stunning trailers and screenshots of upcoming games, only for the final product to fall short. Watch Dogs, we're looking at you.
If you head over to the Nintendo website and view the Trials Rising page, you'll see images well-above the quality of the Switch version. It only adds fuel to the fire, when last week during the beta it was discovered there were "shocking" differences when the Switch version was compared to other platforms. Digital Foundry yesterday followed this up, noting the excessive use of fog in the Switch beta, along with low-quality alpha effects, 720p output, and a 30fps cap.
Below is a screen capture of the Switch beta from the recent Digital Foundry video:
And here's a screenshot from our very own review:
This practice got so out of hand within the industry, the term "bullshot" was coined to call out deceptive screenshots.
What do you make of all this commotion with Trials Rising on Switch? Are you concerned about the performance and visuals in a game like this? Would you consider another version of this game as a result? Tell us in the comments.
[source kotaku.com]
Comments 44
I don’t even know what to say. That’s just...oof
It's poor from Ubisoft, the Switch version looks good enough as it is. It's probably more down to laziness rather than them trying to deceive us though, I imagine they'll have sent out a batch of enhanced screenshots to cover all versions. They have offered an extensive Beta so everyone can see how the game looks for themselves.
Also I don't really think those 2 screenshots are a fair comparison anyway. The first one is 1280x720 and an official promotion screenshot that's been enhanced.I bet if you grabbed a screenshot while playing on the PS4 it wouldn't look that sharp. The blurry one meanwhile is just a low quality Switch screen grab of the Beta reduced in size to 800x448. The Switch takes screenshots at 1280x720 so why resize it, other than to make the Switch version look worse than it actually is?
Edit - These are a couple of screenshots from the Nintendolife review. As you can see it looks much better. Either NL are also using the wrong screenshots in their review or the game looks nowhere near as bad as that blurry screenshot makes it out to be.
I played the demo and looked at the screenshot just now. I think the switch game looks fine.
I haven´t really done this type of game since Mastertronic kickstart, so that´s my point of reference for graphics.
I don’t really approve of misleading people, but I have to say, this nitpicky BS regarding the graphical fidelity of the Switch version has been above and beyond the extreme. The game looks and plays just fine. You can’t expect a handheld Switch game to be on par with XBox X/PS4 Pro versions. I’m personally thrilled that this series has finally seen the light of day on a Nintendo console.
Just checked the eShop and it looks like they have changed the screenshots to the switch versions. So glad I cancelled the preorder on this one.
@OorWullie I've added one of those NL images to the article.
@OorWullie I never believe a screenshot that doesn't have the HUD overlay on it, obviously handpicked, like pictures of food on a menu or a TV dinner box. Never in a million years do those photos ever reflect real life food.
That said, the DF photo is a mess. Possibly for reasons you said, but the dance floor and crane are both missing. And what happened to the puddles? Oh wait...
Yesterday I looked up youtube videos of Trials HD from 2009, and 10 years later it actually looks better in many ways than the Switch version of Trials Rising. Go check out the videos for yourself. The textures, lighting, shadows, etc. all look better in the game that came out a decade ago. Kinda sad.
Kinda makes me not want to buy it
Man, seems like this game is being unfairly nitpicked and torn apart graphically. By reading impressions on here/the forums, it sounds like a blast to play.
This isn't uncommon when it comes to 3'rd party games on the Switch, they often advertise with screen shots from other consoles.
@KryptoniteKrunch
I don't really care about graphics, but I won't support obvious lazyness from the developers.
@rhaydeo why? It's a great game.
@KryptoniteKrunch That's pretty much what I got from the reviews on Metacritic; basically a rather jarring graphical downgrade, but the gameplay came through mostly intact. It's probably one of those things that if you don't go out of your way to do a side by side comparison with the PS4 version, you'll probably never be bothered by it.
@KryptoniteKrunch
It’s been going on from day one. People have been out to nitpick this game to death from the moment they learned what it was.
The game doesn’t actually look bad, which is why people have to constantly make comparisons. Cause otherwise, people never would’ve known in a million years and never would’ve thought anything was wrong with the game whatsoever... (aka people would be satisfied). Never to let a good outrage go to waste though, the media is here to ensure by the time they’re done with you, you absolutely hate it.
Oh no... Now I really regret buying this very entertaining game for my Switch... Forget that it (despite some flaws) is great fun to play! Thanks NL for bringing me to my senses!
I will go back to playing Excitebike instead.
Well, the joke's on them, then - graphical polish and resolution are the very last things I seek to infer from digital storefront screenshots. XD
(...or from anything else, for that matter 😏 )
Deffinately "Bullshot" and in this day and age it's naive. I usually thoroughly research my prospective games on youtube before purchase. Deffinately will not be buying this one.
@tovare
Kickstart 2 was even better with its course editor.
Ubisoft has just been lazy all round with Rising on the Switch.
@tovare Kickstart reference! Man I loved that game. Didn't kickstart 2 have a track editor??
@CaPPa @Tovare Just missed this when I posted my comment!!
@Blue_Rover It did on the speccy. My cousin being on the TV show is still a source of pride in our house.
@BumpkinRich Thats what I had it on. Oh thats cool. That was a good show...
@Blue_Rover I'm pretty sure the back of the cassette showed screenshots of the C64 version. So this story is nothing new in the industry
@BumpkinRich Thats true. However we never had to worry about 30 FPS or whether the game was 1080p or 720p....
@tovare Kickstart was superb.
I think I was always leaning more towards the PS4 version from the very first day I heard about this game so I'm not massively concerned.
I remember playing Trials Fusion when I first bought my original PS4 and just being amazed at how stunning and detailed the backgrounds looked.
I probably am guilty of being a bit of a graphics whore with certain types of games and I'm afraid this is one of them, may as well make use of my PS4 Pro.
Those are bullshots and I hate bullshots. And of course, forget that Astral Chain is going to look like it looked in the announcement trailer. Unfortunately, this is reality of Nintendo's consoles.
This is old news. Virtually all screenshots of third-party games utilise images that aren't reflective of what the game looks like on Switch.
A great philosopher once wrote
'Naughty, naughty, very naughty'
another much ado about nothing... same screen shots on all shops Id imagine, who cares.. we know from reviews and beta what to expect. Id rather have 3rd party games and know what to expect that all throw a tantrum and not have these games... The game is much better it seems from reviews i trust than the early scaremongering.
I remember when I got Space Crusade for C64 and all the screenshots on the back were from the Amiga version. I was so disappointed when I loaded it up.
How this game got an 8 is beyond me. Stuttery, jerky and looks awful. Lazy programming and I simply cannot understand how the game scores an 8 when frankly it is such a poor version.
This is a pretty standard practice for Ubisoft unfortunately, remember the Watchdog fiasco?
The fact that this an Ubisoft Game doesn’t surprise me one iota about this.
Doesn’t bother me as I wont see the other versions. If I did play them on ps or Xbox though I’d find it painful to come over
What really bothers me though is the resolution in handheld on the other system and nobody talks about it. Is like black man, some would say unplayable actually...
@BlackenedHalo
Why wouldn't Astral Chain look like that? It's a Switch exclusive.
@BlackenedHalo Don't feed this troll
Unrelated to the screenshots but I’m a bit disappointed to find the game doesn’t support cloud saves. Annoying omission.
We played a beta meaning not finished game
@jarvismp High score because it is FUN! (And that beats laziness of porting to me). By trying the beta, I give it an 8 as well.
This happens with almost every port from the more powerful machines, on the Switch e-shop.
Hardly unique to this game but if we're lucky, articles like these may one day draw Nintendo's attention to the problem and they'll find some way to close the loophole.
@milliag
There are much better-looking games on Switch so yeah, people can complain about being deceived by false advertising whenever they want.
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