STOP FILMING ME I'M NOT READY

Earlier today, the Internet became briefly abuzz with displeasure at the sight of a new trailer for Activision's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, a first-person shooter based on the AMC TV series. Mainly, this displeasure was centered around the fact that it was a very, very bad trailer. Abysmal, even. The game appeared to be in a very early state, with missing sound effects, plasticky looking zombies, janky animations, and an editing process that appeared to have been at best, rushed.

Now we know why that last thing was the case, at least. PR representatives working on the game confirmed to us tonight that the trailer itself was not edited by anyone at Activision or its agencies, but rather, the work of some overzealous fan.

"That trailer that’s going around on ‘TWDSurvivalInstinct’ channel isn’t official," the rep told us, "It is a fan edit. It looks like they pulled gameplay from the first reveal which was on IGN’s Up at Noon last week."

Indeed, the footage shown in the trailer was clearly taken from the above linked interview, where snippets of the game were shown. That footage was remarked as being from an in-development build, though exactly how far along it was wasn't made clear.

I'll admit that I'm somewhat conflicted as to how to feel about any of this. For one, apologies from me for buying into this. We were hardly the only site to fall for the fan edit, but that's no excuse. We got duped...sort of.

See, that's the thing. Sure, the shoddy editing is explained away, but I don't think that was exactly anyone's issue with the game as shown. It was more that the game looked so far from ready for prime time that showing it in such a state appeared a strange, perhaps ill-considered decision. As of right now, Survival Instinct doesn't have a set release date outside of the greater scope of "2013." So, hey, let's just hope that release date doesn't turn out to be something really crazy, like, say, the March mid-season return of the TV series. There's no way it'll be ready by then, right?

Here's the video, if you still have any interest in watching it.