It looks like footage from a news report. A cop approaches a graffiti-covered, seemingly abandoned building, the sound of his own footsteps and his uniform brushing the mic and disturbing the silence. Only 30 seconds in does the trailer start to look more like a video game: the exaggerated gun reload, the way the cop effortlessly vaults a barrier. But at a passing glance – even at close examination, on a phone screen – it looks as if it could be real. Even when the cop shoots someone and they crumple immediately to the floor.
Unrecord, a “bodycam first-person shooter” being created by French independent developer Drama, made an impact with its shockingly realistic trailer last week. It looks so close to reality because of the natural lighting, muffled sound and shaky camera movement, and the fact that it’s being made in Unreal Engine 5, the cutting edge of video game graphics. The internet is replete with YouTubers screaming in all-caps disbelief about how close it looks to reality, while others are claiming it looks too good to be genuine, and must be an elaborate feat of fakery. And still others have asked: do we really want games to look this alarmingly realistic? Especially when that game is a cop story, and we’ve all seen more bodycam footage of real police shootings than any of us would like.
