Police bodycam shooter Unrecord shocks viewers with its unsettling realism
An independent game studio made waves this week with images of his project Do not pick up, a first-person shooter where players take on the role of a police detective. Which kits Do not pick up apart from its FPS contemporaries, the presentation is: players witness the action through the slightly warped lens of a police camera.
Do not pick up looks disturbingly real thanks to Unreal Engine 5-powered, photo-realistic graphics, but the game’s presentation is more than just convincing lighting and believably decayed game levels. The fisheye lens distortion and herky jerky movements as the player chases and fires at suspects look almost indistinct from actual bodycam footage we’ve been inundated with as police departments release similar footage to the public, often for incredibly disturbing reasons.
Some viewers have even wondered if the gameplay footage from Do not pick up is any gameplay footage at all. The studio behind it, known as Drama, says it’s — “We don’t use real videos or external rendering,” promised it — in a FAQ released Thursday.
“Many doubts have been raised about the authenticity of the gameplay,” the studio said. “The game is developed on Unreal Engine 5 and the game footage is captured from an executable file and played with a keyboard and mouse. It’s not a VR game. In reality, it seems rather flattering to compare the graphics of Do not pick up to reality, but luckily we know that a game focuses first on gameplay and universe on which we primarily focus. Given the high cost of producing a video game and our global reputation at stake, if Do not pick up if it was a scam, it would be a blockbuster scam.”
Response to Do not pick up ranged from disbelief (“I refuse to believe this is gameplay.”) to surprise (“Holy shit, to say the least”) to worry (“very cool, but deeply uncomfortable setting and atmosphere”). Popular (and controversial) streamer Trainwrecks, following Do not pick up programmer and co-director Alexandre Spindler, expressed concern about the images and the resulting political response to themsaying, “This level of shoot-and-kill realism makes me feel uneasy as if I’m watching a real leak from a military or police operation.”
Despite the very realistic depiction of the all-too-familiar police brutality, Do not pick up also gets quite a few joking comments, including “huge fan of games that tackle insane and out-there concepts like “what if the cops don’t turn off their body cam”.’”
Developer Drama has commented on the hyper-realistic depictions of police gun violence, effectively trying to portray the game as apolitical. In an FAQ, the developer wrote:
As a French studio addressing a global audience, the game does not concern itself with any foreign policy and is not inspired by real life events. Unwanted subjects such as discrimination, racism, violence against women and minorities are of course avoided. The game does not have a preconceived or Manichean view of criminal acts and police brutality. We also respect and understand people who may feel disturbed by the game’s visuals. Art cannot fight against interpretation.
Justifying the game’s secret content would be a spoiler, and you’ll find out the direction of the themes for yourself. Audiences generally trust film, serial, and novelists for the intelligence of the point of view when it comes to detective, gangster, or cop stories. Why not for a video game? If the game presents political messages, they are made consciously or in your interpretation. If the game wants to be subversive in certain countries, we’ll adopt the label.
However Do not pick up turns out, it already seems like a lightning rod for conversation. If and when it suits – Drama lists the game’s release date as “to be announced” on Steam – and players finally get their hands on it, that debate is likely to become increasingly charged.