“Making games is hard!” is an expression we’ve frequently heard Sam Lake say. All games start as merely an idea. To bring those ideas to life a dedicated and talented team of developers is needed. They will have to create the technology to power their game, but also every pixel and sound in it. During development, games go through various stages. A “verticle slice”, for example, is a proof of concept that’s usually made to acquire much-needed funding. As time progresses, the rough rock is more and more shaped into the shiny diamond we eventually get to see. Developers and studios are not keen to show behind-the-scenes footage, as this might mislead unaware gamers on the quality of the eventual product. But after release, every now and then some interesting footage pops up.
Paul Ehreth, the Lead Designer of Control, recently released a 4-minute movie on YouTube with some behind-the-scenes material. We see a rough version of Control that already shows it was clear what direction the developers wanted the game to go in.
Paul himself said about the video: “Since graphics are the first thing finished in a video game, and CONTROL won multiple awards for excellence in graphics, here is footage from the beginning of development :)”
As mentioned, this kind of footage is rare, and thus the tweet quickly went viral as gamers around the globe finally got more insight into what game development actually looks like.
