Hello!


What are some examples of game covers showing something that's not actually in the game itself?

Doom 1: We see Doom Guy shooting a bunch of imps. The firearm he's holding looks like it might be an SMG or machine pistol. There's nothing resembling this weapon in the game.


Chrono Cross: Marle is shown casting a fire spell. The element she wields in game play is actually water/ice.

I think just about every game released in the 80's had some terrific cover art, but the games themselves just full short of expectations ;-p

40 Winks; which features the quote "Move over, Mario!"

The lie is that obviously, Mario didn't move over.

Too many to post here. Just an example: Obliterator; that monster didn't exist ingame.

Games? Show me, something honest that is in advertising.

Quest for Glory has a dragon on the cover. There's none ingame, you fight goblins, trolls and bandits but no dragon.

Gabriel Knight 3 - Whatever is happening on the cover, I don't remember it being ingame.

In the "making of" booklet that is available as an extra for Flight of the Amazon Queen, developer John Passfield reminisces about his frustration when Warner Interactive published the game in the US with a non-approved cover depicting pygmies (not actually in the game), a cobra (which is not found in South America) and the main character drawn in a stock baseball pose. He describes it as "embarrasing".

(The whole thing is a very entertaining read if you're interested in game development and how 90s point-and-click adventures were built).

For games released for multiple platforms, there is a tendency to reuse box art.

This is a problem when it includes screenshots from the wrong platform and the graphics capabilities of each are very different.

I believe the PC version of the original Prince of Persia included Macintosh screenshots - this from a time when Macs actually had better graphics.

The covers are one thing... I remember some of the low-budget games had "generic fantasy/SF" covers, much like many books. Like "take random image from Boris Vallejo folder".

Backsides were even worse... "Screenshots from a version you haven't bought"...

It must've been a re-release. The Macintosh version was published 2 years later than the original DOS one.
Was it this one? https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/prince-of-persia/cover-art/gameCoverId,3599/ If so, I don't see any "lying" when showing screenshots of other systems as well.

Difficult to think of examples. Transport tycoon perhaps? It shows cars and general traffic on the cover, which doesn't appear in the game. There are mods though that have attempted to add some.

Infamously, the alien in the cover of the first X-COM game is never found in the game: https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/447128-x-com-ufo-defense-amiga-manual.png

mods added it back though.

Extra information: that's the cover for UFO: Enemy Unknown; the cover for X-COM: UFO Defense was different.