How to Make a Game Announce Trailer
In this previous article I wrote mostly about the styles of teaser trailers for movies, but games are a different animal because the audience has different questions. My main goal for an announce trailer is to leave the audience with one or two unique ideas which are memorable and easy to share.
For example, Hey, did you see that game where:
You play as an uber driver in the future?
You're a martial artist who gets older?
You're a space archaeologist translating an ancient language?
When making an announce trailer, you have to take a good look at all aspects of the game like its: story, game mechanics, art style, setting, character design, animation, sound, or music, and identify the ones which stand out the most. Ideally, the strongest one is the hook of the game; every other element will act as support.
Neo Cab had both a very striking art style and a unique premise!
I've seen a lot of announce trailers which focus too much on the secondary supporting elements like backstory, game modes, customizable outfits, and other features and content which add to the longevity and flavor of the game, but do not help you understand the core experience.
Think of it this way, would you get excited if I pitched my new food stand to you like this:
"Flavors include: strawberry, spam, chocolate, ube, mint and more! It's easy to eat sitting or standing during any time of year!"
I'm guessing most of you are still waiting on the most important piece of information: What type of food is it? For all you know, my new stand is for cat food, ice cream, pizza, steam buns, bagels or noodles. Until you know what food it is, you're not going to know how to feel, and even when you know what type of food it is, you're probably going to wonder what makes my variety different.
Once you've identified the pillars of your game. The main problems to solve when making an announce trailer are:
How much story should you reveal?
How much gameplay should you show?
How do you announce when so little of the game exists?
The answer to the first two are: "As little as possible while still looking and sounding unique." This is one reason why very strong art direction makes marketing so much easier. I think a game with a striking art style barely has to say anything at all about its story or gameplay concepts; they only serve to support and augment the art.
Similarly, Open Roads also has a unique art style mixing 2D animation with 3D models, but while it’s set in the “real” world, the circumstances of the characters are unique.
How much story to reveal
An announce trailer should start as broad as possible with a premise for the world, and/or a unique character or situation. Which you highlight in the trailer depends on which part is most unique.
If the main character is a blank slate or not distinctive in any way, then the premise of the world might be what the trailer needs to hang on.
For example:
In the future, humans cannot reproduce (Children of Men)
There's a city under the sea (BioShock)
A corporation pays people to dismantle space debris (Hardspace: Shipbreaker)
Either of these premises are enough for an announce trailer alone because they're unique. In contrast, other games might have a world premise which aside from art style isn't terribly unique, in which case it would need to take a back seat in the announce trailer to something more hooky.
For example:
A world over run by zombies (Dying Light, Days Gone, Typing of the Dead, etc.)
An explorer looking for treasure (Spelunky, Tomb Raider, Uncharted)
A hero needs to destroy a big evil thing (Legend of Zelda, Hyper Light Drifter, Dark Souls, etc.)
Each of these games aren't resting on the strength of their world premise; the premise is a supporting element to their actual hook. In the cases where the world and its premise aren't what make it unique, the characters and their situations might be what makes the game stand out.
A girl goes on a road trip with her mother to uncover the truth about her grandmother's mysterious past as a burglar (Open Roads)
You're a middle aged man escaping your life by taking a job as a fire lookout (Firewatch)
You're a teenage girl in a relationship with a young man you met in an online multiplayer game (Cibele)
For these games the characters and their situation are what make the story unique, and each of their circumstances what would support an announce trailer.
Dying Light’s premise of a world over run by zombies isn’t unique, but its use of parkour and the day/night cycle for the gameplay is!
How much gameplay to show
For games where the stories and characters aren't the hook, but act as flavor to the game mechanics, the announce trailer has to communicate the mechanic which is most unique. In some cases this ties into the character itself like in Untitled Goose Game, but this won't always be the case. Most games' mechanics will have some amount of overlap with other games in the same genre, so it's up to the announce trailer to bring attention to the things which do NOT overlap.
For example, for Sifu a big hook was the idea and visual of the character aging after being defeated. There are a handful of other games which feature Asian martial artists, but to my knowledge this is the only one with this idea, so it was important to draw attention to that idea via the revival sequence in the middle of the teaser, and to emphasize it by showing the character eventually becoming and old man.
The announce trailer I helped make for Sifu
As another example, Noita and Downwell are superficially like Spelunky in that you're a character going farther and farther underground, except in Noita you're a wizard in a world where all forms of matter act like they do in the real world, and in Downwell you have guns for shoes.
So when making an announce trailer for a game where the central mechanic is the hook, it's important to very quickly situate the audience in familiar genre conventions (probably no more time than the first third or half of the trailer) and then turn everything on its head with the gameplay hook. Once that core gameplay plus the hook are established, then it's not a bad idea to switch to a quick "content montage" to imply the game also has variety. Then end it as quickly as possible.
The Last of Us’ premise of a world overrun by fungal zombies is mostly not unique, but the characters and their relationship are what make the game stand out combined with the amazing cinematic execution.
How to announce when so little game exists
If you've analyzed your game's hooks, then hopefully this question related to production realities is then easier to solve.
What shots, text, voiceover, art and animation are needed to convey the world's premise or the characters' situation?
What game mechanics, art, animation, environments need to be created in order to indicate the familiar genre conventions and then show how this game's mechanic turns those into something new and original?
My previous article about how to start a trailer timeline might help you plan out your outline and come up with a shot list. For a story focused announce trailer, you need shots which establish the world, premise and characters' situation. For a gameplay focused announce trailer you need shots which put you into a genre space, and then fleshes out the core concept of the gameplay hook.
If you're having trouble figuring it out because you're too close to the project, it's always good to have and outside perspective. As a shameless self-plug, I do consultations where I look over rough cuts of your trailer and then talk it over in a 60 minute video call, or if you just need a 30 min call I do those too!
There's also my Discord where you can submit your trailer for critique or just seek out other people who are interested in game trailer making.
