Making a Trailer When You're Overloaded With Good Material
Making a trailer for a game overflowing with good material sounds deceptively easy. After all, if everything is good, you can just show everything, right?
Haha, not exactly.
When you put SO much good material in a trailer you risk overwhelming the audience's cognitive load to the point they don't remember much of anything at all, or they come away with a mental map of the game much smaller than what it could've been.
When overloaded with material, the trick is to be extra judicious about what you show, edit it together in a logical and understandable sequence, and frequently check whether or not the core pillars of the game's story and mechanics are coming through.
This is how I felt working on Psychonauts 2 knowing there was no way I could fit in every cool thing I wanted to into the story trailer :P
How do you know when you're making a trailer for a game with more material than you could possibly fit into one trailer? First take inventory of your game's assets. The parts of the game which provide the most meaty trailer material are:
Bespoke gameplay interactions, puzzles, etc.
Environment variety
Story, dialogue & characters
Whenever you show a unique one of these things, it dramatically increases the possibility space of the game and therefore, the variety of shots you can make for the trailer. For example, if a character can only jump and stomp on enemies then that's going to get boring quickly. Same goes for if the main interaction of the game is walking around, and looking at objects you pick up. There's a lot more you can show if the character can run, jump, shoot, reload, climb, swim, skateboard, sneak, solve puzzles, throw grenades, pet cats, build weapons, talk to people, read books, turn into animals, etc.
If every puzzle in a game is solved by putting a cube into a receptacle, that's very different than if they're solved by turning knobs, deciphering patterns, draining waterfalls, aligning lasers, ripping open pillows, breaking jars, seeing invisible painting with special goggles, etc.
If there are only four different biomes in a game, of course you're going to be able to quickly show them all in a trailer than if there are 12 or more. And you're going to have less to show in a trailer if the story is "Go rescue the cat" rather than a twisting and turning mystery with multiple character arcs, subplots, red herrings, etc.
Manifold Garden has A LOT of unique visuals, but as far as player verbs it's fairly limited and would be easy to bore a trailer audience expecting new ideas every few seconds.
The impetus for this post is I've been enjoying the Action RPG Unsighted by Studio Pixel Punk and my goodness does this game have A LOT of everything in the best way possible. I think its trailers are pretty good, mostly by virtue of the fact the game itself shows incredibly well, but after playing the game I feel the trailers don't give me as rich a picture as it could've despite releasing four of them.
The main problem I see in the trailers is in their effort to show as much as possible, they're cut so fast they feel like they're in end-montage mode the entire time. End montages are best when the audience is equipped with a firm grasp of the game's premise and loop, such that a quick flash of images in an end montage is easily understandable and can excite the audience.
For example, if the first two thirds of a trailer for the game Shadow of the Colossusshows you do a lot of traversal and exploration in order to discover a giant colossus who you then fight in an epic battle, an end montage which quickly shows 6 more Colossi says "You will do all of that in at least six other ways." But a fast cut montage with a mix of everything you do in the game can create a poor mental map of the game loop.
If your game has a menu screen like this, it's very possible you're going to have trouble paring down what to show in your trailer.
The trailers for Unsighted do a pretty good job at showing the things you do in the game, but by saying: "Here is what you can do" rather than saying: "This is the journey." It's kind of like trying to sell me a smartphone by showing how I can download apps with maps, restaurant reviews and take photos rather than showing how with a smartphone I can travel to a foreign country, know where to get good food, and save my memories of the trip.
Unsighted has A LOT of influences which I'm going to use as shorthand to explain a lot of its features; it's might make it sound like a game with no identity, but trust me when I say it all works in a cohesive package which has me thoroughly engrossed and ready to shout its praises to the rooftops (this should also be a lesson in how describing a game's features doesn't necessarily sell it well).
The game features:
A post apocalyptic story about Automatons struggling for survival after being attacked by humans
Fully realized characters and NPCs in a lived-in world which reminds me of classic Super Nintendo JRPG games like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger
Toggle-able mechanic (which ties into the story) where you and NPCs have a limited amount of life left before you turn into brainless automaton enemies. A particular collectible item in the game allows you to extend the life of yourself and friends of your choosing. This affects which characters survive, and results in multiple possible endings.
Legend of Zelda-like dungeon structure with keys, puzzles and unique boss battles and Link Between Worlds structure where you can tackle the dungeons in any order.
Metroid style interconnected world and map with items which each give you new ways of getting around AND a tool to use in combat.
Hyper Light Drifter style realtime movement and combat
Flexible character customization system for health, stamina and other buffs along with one-time use upgrades for the same.
Crafting system to help customize your character's stats and items
Many Dark Souls inspirations like parrying/critical hit combat, lost currency which can be retrieved after death, interconnected maps with unlockable shortcuts.
Active reload system a la Gears of War
Multiple melee and long range weapons which can be purchased and upgraded
Pets & fishing
Just this one shot could shot could show a lot about the combat system, boss battles, weapons, upgrades, etc. But when this is just one of many similar shots, there's less time to absorb much more than "There's combat!"
I'm sure I'm missing something there, but this is A LOT. On top of this there's a lot of enemy variety, environment variety and the different items you find and unlock. This translates to an incredible number of potential shots across multiple trailers.
You might be wondering: "How do you know when a trailer for a game with a lot of stuff has a lot of shots, but isn't saying as much as it could be?"
For this I do something of an "audit" of the trailers to parse the ideas it's communicating. This will be a little tricky to be objective because I've already played multiple hours of the game, and therefore can better parse what is happening in each shot, but I'm going to do my best to try to view it with "fresh" eyes.
The Nintendo Switch announce trailer has quite a lot of content in it to the point it feels more like a second gameplay trailer than an announcement. Here are the ideas I can parse:
0:00-0:18 There's a story told via cutscenes, there's a main character who is a synthetic life form.
0:18-0:27 You hit and shoot enemies.
0:27-0:35 You craft weapons and stuff to hit and shoot enemies.
0:35-0:48 There's a map and you have multiple means of traversal.
0:48-0:54 There are powerups and upgrades.
0:53-0:57 Something called Anima gives you life? Without it you share the fate of your enemies. This is unclear.
0:58-1:05 There are boss battles,
1:05-1:12 You can share Anima to give life? You choose who you save? This is still kind of unclear.
1:12-1:30 End The clock is ticking. Not sure if this is story or game mechanic related.
From this trailer there's a pretty good variety of shots, but as far as gameplay goes not a lot of it stands out when it's being described. Though for an announce this is a pretty meaty trailer. It should be noted this is technically not the first announce trailer. The first one hit a lot of similar notes, but also heavily focused on the limited time factor in a much more explicit fashion.
Lots of environmental storytelling built into the levels. These give a great sense of the backstory, size and scope of the game.
The release date trailer hits these notes: explore a world, upgrade your arsenal, discover paths, lots of fighting and boss battles. Again, it's pretty fast cut and feels functionally very similar to the Nintendo Switch announce trailer, albeit shorter. The launch trailer uses voiceover and hits a lot of the same notes: post apocalyptic story, time is running out, there's combat, ways to get around, crafting, upgrades, boss battles and there's a button which features fishing.
One big thing missing for me is the unlocking of abilities and a feeling of progression. As it is, I can't really know which abilities in the trailer are default abilities and which are unlocked (if any are). This has the effect of somewhat flattening out the gameplay loop. A huge part of the fun of this game's influences are the sense of progression, improving and gaining new abilities, unlocking new areas, etc. But here they get lumped into combat montages which do look cool, but could feel better if we clearly understood how the game builds and builds.
The Anima mechanic is also mentioned, but not very clear. I could see a version of the trailer which has a slow moment similar to the Spiritfarer launch trailer where we take a moment for the gut wrenching feeling of losing an NPC character.
There are a lot of cutscenes in the game which could be intercut with gameplay
I'm currently close to finishing the game and I think there are a lot of the game's elements which would've been nice to give more screen time in the trailer. Most of the combat in these trailers functionally read as the same idea, but taking a breath to more fully flesh out parts of the loop might be all that was needed to give a clearer sense of the journey as the character and player.
My advice when you're in the enviable position to have so much good stuff to show in a trailer is to hone in on the player experience and the story it creates rather than flashing a lot of the content onto screen and pointing out the features. Savvy players will likely be able to parse how good the gameplay for a game like Unsightedis despite the trailer's structure, but if the trailer helps facilitate their understanding in a cohesive way with an effective dramatic arc, it will leave a much more lasting impression.
There's a surprisingly large cast of characters which I don't see often in games; it really reminded me of Final Fantasy VI and SNES JRPGs.
The way you do this is to find the pillars of the game's design and/or story and flesh those out in the trailer first so you know they're coming across. For Unsighted I think the pillars are:
Story premise of automatons with limited life span, and the main character's mission to save them
Rich cast of supporting characters and epic cutscenes
Fast and satisfying realtime combat
You gain new abilities and items which unlock new areas and give you new means of fighting
Legend of Zelda style puzzle solving
I think those are the most important parts to get across in the game because they have a lot of flavor and they're a fairly unique combination despite the popularity of their influences. After finding the pillars to focus on I'd look at the secondary elements which still add something unique but are less important. These are things which can add a bit of spice to the meat of the game, often in the form of accents which fit in between the trailer's mini montages.
Parrying system which results in critical hits
Active reload system based on Gears of War
Weapon variety, crafting, player upgrade system
Pets & Fishing
Making a good trailer is all about focus and putting your attention onto the right things for the right amount of time to create a feeling and understanding of the source material. It can be somewhat harrowing because just a few seconds more or less can mean the difference between something being understood or completely lost in the shuffle. But by finding the core of the trailer early, you're more likely to find success connecting with your audience.
It should go without saying that this post is also a RINGING ENDORSEMENT of Unsighted which has been getting lost in the shuffle of Fall releases. It's available on Steam, Xbox (it's on Gamepass!), PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, so GO PLAY IT!
