I’ve been meaning to post up a topic like this for a while now and the Deceptive Game Trailers thread finally gave me the nudge I needed.
I want to hear which game trailers you think are great and why, and preferably linking to them if possible. It doesn’t matter if they feature in-game footage or none at all, whether they’re early teasers or as old as the hills, or even whether the final game turned out crap in the end; they just have to be great as a standalone thing. I’ll start with a few of my favourites:
Portal is just a really hard game to explain to people. This trailer not only introduces the concept of the game, how to play it and how it develops, in scale and complexity (‘Now you’re thinking with Portals’), but it also introduces GLaDOS. This is all conveyed using in-game footage spliced with the now iconic Aperture Science infographics and animations. Perfect.
The voiceover in this trailer is so damn good that it’s easy to not realise that he’s explaining the mechanics of the game too. The video and sound editing is also impeccable.
This ticks a lot of boxes as far as introducing all the game’s features go, but ultimately it’s the sense of humour that does it for me. BOOM.
The Splatoon announcement trailer got me so pumped at the time but looking back it effortlessly and giddily introduces so many things in such a short space of time, all to the game’s fizzy theme tune being performed live. I think this encapsulates Splatoon perfectly, more so than the final ads. Sheesh.
I’d add thatNo Man’s Sky trailer to this list because it really is awe inspiring, as well as the 2001 trailer for Duke Nukem Forever because, at the time, man, it looked so cool and stupid.
Probably predictable, but A Night to Remember is the best CGI trailer ever made:
It is perfect in how it showcases content of the game, atmosphere, and raw emotion. And I love how it came out at launch of TW3 despite being actually set during Blood and Wine.
I could list several more Witcher trailers - Hope / Disdain and Fear from Witcher 2, the Launch trailer and Sword of Destiny trailer from Witcher 3…
Alas, my next pick is this piece of wonder from The Crew:
Just beautiful, first thing about this game that made me excited about it. Again there are many other great Crew trailers, Ubisoft directors have fantastic eye and taste for music.
Most of the GTA trailers are also fantastic. I have a soft spot for this one:
For now, I’ll post two to start. Here’s a favorite of mine that very few people watched, I think, but it’s brilliant. Well worth watching whole, because it changes brilliantly around 60% of the way.
Second one is one that only 30+ folks will truly grok. ;)
I remember watching this one over and over in anticipation. Context: probably around the same time that I made disinterested friends and family sit through the Mechwarrior 2 intro.
Nothing to do with gameplay though, so more of teaser I guess. Mechanus Cannon: the game.
Going by the criteria of the OP, the No Man’s Sky trailer is great. It imparted a sense of wonder, became an overnight hit, got people’s imaginations fired up, and I think you can argue that it moved the Hell out of some units. It’s still being used as the trailer on the Steam store. Too bad about the game.
Dead Island’s reveal trailer is bonkers good. It’s better than most of the actual zombie movies I’ve seen. It has a story, a sense of pathos, some shocks, some gore, and makes you think the game will be an emotional crucible. Psyche! They got us all!
