With internet critics mindlessly trolling GTA VI’s early development graphics comes unforeseen repercussions.
The only game spanning three generations worth of consoles, GTA V saw its release almost a decade ago in 2013, and fans are clamoring for any information that they can lay their hands on for GTA VI, the newest mainline series installment in the franchise.
On Sept. 19, teapotuberhacker, commonly known as “Teapot,” was responsible for one of the biggest leaks in recent video game history, where the hacker released over 90 videos from the GTA VI’s early development stages to GTAForums.
Other than outcry and serious legal action from Rockstar Games involving the FBI, netizens have had quite a few comments to lay down on what first impressions the game gave to the curious onlookers. One main concern was the subpar graphics and overall visuals that were present throughout all the leaked footage of GTA VI.
Related: Rockstar breaks silence on GTA 6 and impact on Grand Theft Auto franchise
One tweet made by @Design4Mind317, whose account has been made private since sparked an absolute keyboard-smashing storm on Twitter and the internet in general.
“If you know how game development goes, you’ll know that visuals are one of the first things done,” said the unassuming Twitter user, not knowing the outrage he was about to cause. After more supposed misinformation, he ends the tweet saying “it does look ass.”
Offended game developers all over the world, both big names and smaller indie developers, began doubling down on what was said by this and a few other similar tweets, roughly quoting the criticism in question and proving to the armchair game developers all over the world why they should think twice before they speak.
One tweet that really took off was from the 2019 smash-hit Control’s lead designer, Paul Ehreth, who was largely responsible for the game-winning several awards for its visuals.
“The best thing to come from all this silliness is the awareness that every game, no matter how good it ends up, starts as a fragment of broken junk,” Ehreth explained in the following tweet. “It’s all the years of hard work from the team, building and refining it that makes it great.”
Other notable figures from the industry like Sam Barlow, director of the visually-stunning 2022 release Immortality, and Cult of the Lamb’s official Twitter handle shared their own games and how bare-bones they looked during initial development stages.
Hell hath no fury like a game dev’s scorn, apparently.
