I’d barely had time to finish my first cup of coffee this morning when rumors and concept art about a Warren Spector steampunk Mickey Mouse Wii game dominated the daily 4cr thread and more than a few forums. The conceptual art is worth an equal amount of words and arguments. Is this an American McGee styled take on Disney? Or is this a serious attempt to reach gamers that are more attached to the iconic imagery littering this apocalyptic world than we might realize ourselves connected to? Perhaps most importantly, what good deed did we do to get both this and a trailer for Tron Legacy simultaneously?

Classic Disney properties have never lacked dark undertones, and yet seeing that rise to the surface so predominately here is enough to stop traffic. Any number of possibilities as to what exactly the game is about are open to discussion, with no one who knows for sure saying anything as of yet. But the discussions and arguments have been the best result on the day.

Every single day, approximately 2 trillion screenshots shoot across gaming sites, leaving gamers to argue that X looks better than Y while galleries overflow with images that don’t really add any information and melt into a pixelated bandwidth intensive blob of meaninglessness.

Conceptual art of this caliber offers insight into the development process rather than the marketing. Our imaginations are allowed to run wild with possibilities. The cynical and earnest fact is that the end result will rarely match the expectations raised today - and yet this doesn’t need to be a negative. Our imaginations should be unique unto ourselves, and we should be able to look at these images today and dream about any number of possibilities we want, which is a worthy distraction for the day if there ever was one.

More images after the break.




Hit this Neogaf thread up for more images and speculation.