Unrecord: gameplay footage so convincing people are convinced it's fake (ie real)

Hold onto your hats for this one. A new gameplay trailer has set certain sections of the internet on fire as people accuse the developer of passing off real video as gameplay footage.

If you want a glimpse of exactly how good high end games made with Unreal Engine 5 are getting you only have to look at the furore surrounding a gameplay trailer for a new FPS title, Unrecord. The trailer, from developers Drama, dropped a few days ago and has already racked up over two million views as people debate whether it's real or not.

Of course, we're talking games here, so the usual argument is inverted. The developer's position can be summed up as ' No, of course it's not real, we made this in Unreal Engine 5 and it's coming to a PC near you soon'. The counter argument is that this is live-action video footage mocked up to look like a game and the developer is up to no good.

Have a look.

The argument has unfolded across socials, delved into historical posts on reddit, and generally run the entire 2023 lexicon of bad-tempered online discourse. As The Escapist pointed out, Drama co-director, Alexander Spindler, even posted footage on Twitter of the game running in Unreal Engine to prove its veracity, before that in turn was accused of being faked.

The clinching argument that the game is real (ie not real) probably comes down to the fact that several assets in the footage, including the main shell of the building the game is set in, can be clearly identified as assets for sale in the UE marketplace ($89.99 for the building, if you're interested). And faking that would be a monumentally difficult hoax to pull off. But, either way, we're in some strange new territory where the accusations of something being faked can nowadays be based purely on the possibility that it may actually be real.