Making Trailers for an Existing Fanbase
Making a game trailer for an existing fanbase is a rare privilege only a small percentage of games and studios are successful enough to attain. Working under these circumstances is easier in that you don't work as hard to "warm" up the audience, but it's more precarious because the trailer has to speak the language of the community and when that's done poorly it can make the trailer feel out of touch.
I'll walk you through the different types of trailers you might need to make for an existing fanbase and tips for ways I've seen people have the most success. Here are some scenarios:
Sequels
Content Updates
1.0 Releases
Appreciation/Celebration/Tributes
One of the advantages of working with a "warm" audience is you have more room to play with expectations and be coy with details because you don't have to worry as much about gaining their respect and attention, but you can't afford to be TOO coy with details. Back to the stand up comedy analogy, when you're a returning comic, people will be more willing to watch 5 minutes of your material *as opposed to 3 min allotted to new comics), but you still have to be funny!
Sequels
The reveal trailer for The Last of Us Part II did a phenomenal job of teasing the fanbase's curiosity by cinematically drip feeding information about the story and its characters. This was a great example of both drawing things out while simultaneously delivering the goods. When watching this trailer I can clearly see the thought process of "What does the audience want to know?" and "How can we make the reveal of that information suspenseful?" (read my full review of the trailer here)
The lesson here is to be aware of what questions your fanbase has in mind as soon as they hear there's a sequel coming for one of their favorite games. The overall question is: "What justifies the existence of a sequel?" which breaks down into:
What are the new game mechanics?
What does this add to the story and characters?
What new technical/graphical improvements were made?
Why is that interesting?
One thing you never want to do is to treat your existing fanbase like a sure thing who will blindly purchase anything you make. Yes it is more likely fans will want to buy the sequel, but if they don't see a good reason to then they won't! For example, after the announcement trailer for Spelunky 2 (which showed no gameplay) I knew the gameplay trailer had to really deliver the goods for the fans who were dying to see what to expect from a sequel to Spelunky. After the gameplay trailer, I made the State of Play Trailer with the intent to help the audience understand why the sequel was made.
For Spelunky 2, the gameplay trailer showed a lot of content and mechanics via new enemies and level hazards and also a more refined visual language. The story of Spelunky isn't its main draw but the sequel follows the daughter of Guy Spelunky to the moon to rescue her parents. The sequel also boasts liquid fluid dynamics, lava, new lighting and myriad other features. The "Why is that interesting?" question is probably difficult for people who didn't play the original, but we were pretty confident fans of the first game would be able to recognize how even the smallest changes can fundamentally change the feel of the whole game.
Content Updates
I recently made update trailers for Among Us, which was a great lesson in delivering the goods and speaking the language of the (very large) community. Innersloth's Community Director Victoria Tran set a tone for the game's social media which is a lot of fun to play in (and also has a lot of overlap with my own sense of humor.) I'm a big admirer of Victoria's work, so I was already pretty in tune with her vibe which permeates into the Among Us online presence; this made it relatively easy to find the right way to make a trailer which is just a bunch of bullet points.
A conversation we had during the Roadmap trailer's production.
The lesson here is that even content updates can be fun and entertaining if the game and its community speak a particular language which you can translate into a video. Since the trailer doesn't need to educate the audience about the game mechanics it can also be cut much faster since their eyes are calibrated to see the pertinent bits of information. For example, the PUBG season trailers to my eyes just look like more of the same, but fans of the game will be able to identify new content.
1.0 Releases
Similar to update trailers, 1.0 releases are partially playing to the audience who followed a game through early access (which can often span many years!) while also saying to a new audience "It's finally done and here is what it is!" The opportunities within these trailers are to:
Summarize the game for a new audience
Acknowledge the early access community
The trailer I helped make for Subnautica is an overview of the game's premise from the crash landing on the water planet to the game's loop of exploring, gathering materials, building up a base and then exploring more. The way we acknowledged the community was by showing the player experience in as accurate a fashion as we could and also tapping into the YouTuber and streamer communities with some quotes. This was one situation where it made a lot of sense to cite streamers and YouTubers since they were such a huge part of Subnautica's success.
Authenticity and accuracy was also a big goal for the 1.0 trailer I made for Noita. I did a TON of research on the game and also what people in the community experienced and enjoyed about it. This is what led me to make a trailer which largely surrounded the loop of experimenting with wands and blowing yourself up due to failed experiments or your own hubris. To my delight, I saw several comments from people who said the trailer looked exactly like one of their own runs through the game.
Celebration and Appreciation
When people are part of a community they love, they want to feel welcome and to take pride in it. Especially for long running games there are opportunities to celebrate the game and the people who play it. This can coincide with anniversary events, massive content updates or otherwise incremental sort of achievements of the game. This trailer for the 4th anniversary of Stellaris is a great example of one which gives people a space to celebrate the game. It also coincided with a weekend where the game was free and a 2.7 update.
Trailers for entire franchises can also serve this purpose like this recent look at the evolution of the Ratchet & Clank series or this amazingly well made tribute to PlayStation games by @Much118x.
To Sum Things Up
Most of what I try to teach in my posts are how to make a trailer for a "cold" audience who needs to be engaged and educated by a game they've never seen before. When you don't need to worry about training the eye of the audience, you can show the exciting things much easier and sooner (or play coy with them). This means skipping to the new and exciting stuff or just jumping straight into the "content" portion of the trailer. For example, later trailers for Marvel films like The Avengers: Infinity War or The Avengers: Endgame would be terribly confusing to a new audience, but everyone who's been following just needs to know what happens next.
But when you have people who are part of a community, make sure the trailer speaks their language! Whether it's through literal words which mean something within the community, the tone set by the Community Director, or it just means showing things from the game which are familiar lived experiences of the players.
As always, think of who is watching when making the trailer so you know what to say. For example, you likely have a shorthand you use with close friends which you would never use for a stranger who requires more context (and even then might still not understand.) Having a strong community behind your studio or games is a huge privilege cultivated by a lot of hard work, so make the most of it when you're making trailers for them!
