What Do Games Actually Look Like During Development?

Video games are hard to make. You might have heard that somewhere before.

Most people recognize that video games do not simply burst, fully-QA'd, from eggs laid carefully by an executive who then adjusts his T-shirt and blazer and steps onstage at E3 to announce their triumphant existence. But depending on how Extremely Online you are, you might not really have a good concept of exactly what they look like before they show up on your platform of choice, or even before we see them in shiny reveal trailers.

That's one small part of what's made the discussion around the Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks so tricky to navigate. Everyone has a different perspective on how much your average gamer knows about what in-development games look like, or how much they even should know. The games industry exists in a fog of secrecy around everything from basic questions about how a gameplay mechanic will work pre-launch to sales numbers after launch. And perhaps that's somewhat earned given the week's events: Game creators worry that an unexpected leak will harm employee morale, muck up a carefully-plotted marketing campaign, or turn opinions about an upcoming game sour before its creators even have a chance to show off its best features.

But at the same time. it's not true that information about how games look and feel early on is some esoteric, mysterious, unknowable thing. In fact, that information is everywhere. Game development details can be found in annual GDC talks from giants like Nintendo and Insomniac, and in official tweets especially from indie studios trying to build community. Heck, IGN has a whole video series chock full of these juicy game dev tidbits. If you want to know what your favorite game looked like before you got to play it yourself, chances are, that information is out there in some form or another.

And, delightfully, one positive response to the GTA 6 leaks has been that an awful lot of developers and others have offered to share even more of that early footage for our edification. Though many folks were already doing so on Twitter when we spoke up (largely in appropriately snarky responses to someone's wrong suggestion that visuals are the first bit of a game to be fully complete), I also asked devs to answer the following question: What did your game look, sound, and feel like two years before it came out?

The responses are an absolute delight to wade through, and tell us a lot about the challenges of game development, as well as the many, many different philosophies regarding how one even goes about making a complete game in the first place.

Visuals First?

Look, let's get this one out of the way: No one's signing a form two years out from a game's release that says, "Yes these graphics are done and will never change ever, now make the game fun!" But it is true that some games actually look rather nice early on.

Some games have pretty well established their general art styles early on in development. Wayward Strand, which was just released last week, had its general art style and character designs in place a few years ago according to creator Marigold Bartlett. And its script was two-thirds of the way done. But it still took years more work to make something playable and complete. Even though the basic style was in place, there was a lot more work to do to polish it.