Frostpunk 2 Gameplay Trailer Review
This is a great gameplay trailer for one of the most difficult game genres to make trailers for: realtime strategy games. This was made entirely internally by 11bit studios and does a lot with very little. The audience for this was likely very "warm" since this is a sequel to a well regarded game by a studio with a very good reputation. But I think even if this was a completely unknown game by a new studio this would still be a very effective trailer.
It starts with a quote by Roman historian and politician Gaius Sallustius Crispus:
"By union the smallest states thrive... by discord the greatest are destroyed." - Sallust
It sets up the idea of trying to maintain a city or region. This is set under a low boom with a cold wind blowing. The stark white combined with the sound design evokes the feeling of a relentless Winter.
I’ve never seen a disclaimer which specifies PC specs. This is a nice way of both being transparent and catering to the PC gamers.
The camera flies through clouds to a massive city built in a harsh icy biome. We hear a handful of voices addressing the "Steward" which in this case is the player. Even if it's not clear the voices are addressing who the player will become, we know they are talking to someone who they expect to be in charge. This ends with a cut to black for the 11 Bit Studios pedigree card. The trailer really takes its time with the slow fades in and out of black, which adds to the gravitas of the slow camera moves and cold Winter setting. The beautiful graphics also add tremendously to the visual appeal.
After the logo the voiceover establishes the premise of trying to rebuild after a post apocalypse. The voices say "Let's take it back!" followed by "But how?" This very clearly sets up the trailer to show us how the game works, but in a way where the voiceover still feels like it could belong in the universe of the game. By which I mean, it's plausible characters in this game would say something like this.
I think the voiceover in this trailer tends to lean closer to explicitly explaining gameplay and a bit further from feeling like natural dialogue from people in the world, but it's acted with such sincerity that I feel that compensates for any artifice in the conceit of "This is being said so we can explain gameplay features."
That is PC game UI if I ever saw it. Absolutely tiny and meant to be used from a screen about a foot away from your face. A nice way to show the gameplay and once again speak to the PC gaming audience.
After the "But how?" the trailer cuts to gameplay with visible UI. If we didn't know that we the player are responsible for dealing with this situation, this is a very clear way to show it. The voices call for the Steward to choose the path of the people, who then start inundating them with requests for things like better homes. In response, the empty parts of the landscape populate with more structures. This is even accompanied by what sounds like computer mouse clicks performing the desired actions.
The stakes are raised as the people cry out for more help due to starvation. A menu screen with lots of very small text pops up. In other circumstances this would be too much to process, but since the trailer has taught us to use the voiceover as our source of information, the menu is supplemental information. We see how the in-world voices manifest as player choices and obstacles. The music gets even more intense as the people feel neglected, calling for places to work. The trailer reaches another climax as the camera flies into a dark and smoggy cloud.
There’s no physical way to read this text unless your eyes are very close to it, but the voiceover tells us all we need to know. This is like giving the trailer some literal flavor text to read later on our own time if we’re invested.
When we emerge, the people are angrier than ever. There's a montage of characters with very specific grievances: insufficient housing, hungry workers, experiments being conducted in hospitals. In this section the voices tell us everything we need to know for the story, but you can literally do a second read of the trailer to get a more detailed look.
This is followed by a couple bird's eye view shots of the city with people calling out for free education, secure and stable growth and a city run for the citizens. The trailer gets even more intense as people begin to protest and get involved in how the city is governed. I don't know that I've ever seen a trailer climax which is a proposed law being rejected, but here it is! It ends with some more intense sound design, a city in flames and the tagline: THE CITY MUST NOT FALL.
The visual design is so beautiful. This bird’s eye view of the hall of the government echos the shape of the city, with the lit up people representing the sides who voted on the law.
This is a really strong trailer which is well directed and conceived. I love when a game trailer can walk the line of explaining gameplay while feeling like we're immersed in the story. If you listened to this trailer you would know most of what this trailer says. The visuals just strengthen the message by showing what the game looks like. It can be intimidating to make a trailer for a game where there's not a lot of moving parts but this proves that the tools and language of film can compensate for any perceived lack of "action" the game's visuals are capable of creating. The music and sound creates the mood, the slow cinematography enhances the feeling of this apocalyptic world taken over by frost, and the editing creates weight when things are starting up, and drama when the intensity ramps up.
Super well done!
