Helldivers 2 Trailers Review
The Helldivers 2 trailers are a great example of how easy it is to make a trailer which does not highlight a game's hooks and strengths. They are overall very well made, but there is one which stands out because of how much it DOESN'T stand out.
Helldivers 2 is the latest breakout hit game everyone is talking about and seemed to come out of nowhere. It's a take on Starship Troopers' satirical story told from the perspective of a fascist Earth military government fighting a war against alien bugs and robots. The internet has fully embraced this story, with comment sections for videos about the game are often peppered with people declaring their dedication to the cause and other patriotic slogans.
This is a 3rd person shooter game which is exclusively co-op multiplayer (the developers have stated there will be no player-vs-player mode) There are several design choices which lead to videos sharing their often hilarious deaths. Some of those features include friendly fire, calling in drops for supplies (and then getting killed by the drop), and other things that the propagandists of this universe would be careful to omit in their patriotic films.
The announce trailer does a great job setting up the humor and tone of this world by structuring itself as a propaganda video about defending Super Earth from the alien bugs. You can already see the satirical tone from the first shot's fine print of:
"Brought to you by the Super Earth Ministry of Truth. Undivided attention is mandatory."
If you weren't already sure what was going on, the cutscene of the man comically witnessing the death of his family should clue you in. The film Starship Troopers doesn't play things up for laughs in the same way, so it's even easier to miss the satire and take the patriotic might-makes-right fight against evil at face value. But the direction of the cutscene, the framing of the family's death, and the man's ridiculous expression make this propaganda video absolutely absurd.
This might be an indication the video’s tone is not entirely serious
The rest of the video shows gameplay with a narrator talking about the benefits of joining the military such as:
Experience true freedom
Secure the resources to build a better tomorrow
Encounter fascinating life forms (and introduce them to our sophisticated technology)
Make new friends
Represent the best of what Super Earth has to offer
Become part of an elite peacekeeping force
Work together to spread prosperity, liberty, and democracy.
All of this is juxtaposed with footage of carnage and soldiers fighting alien bugs. It works well at showing the gameplay and the game's hook of fighting for an uber-patriotic, somewhat bumbling Earth military. This is a really good example of how people want something new but just slightly different.
The "Report For Duty" trailer is quite different because the satirical voice and presentation is entirely absent. This is a much more "typical" game trailer which shows the different costumes, upgrades, and shooting gameplay. This trailer lacks the humor and tone of the announce trailer (and the subsequent launch trailer)
This trailer has no voiceover, no player deaths, and is pretty indistinguishable from a lot of AAA shooter game trailers. The gameplay looks great, but avoids showing the lived experience of playing the game (which by all reports involves a lot of dying and fumbling). The way this trailer DOES work is as an example of something which would exist in this universe to recruit soldiers; it shows how cool it is to fight the aliens.
This trailer would be great propaganda for a military showing their strength, but like the film Starship Troopers, it plays it "straight" and requires closer observation to get past the surface level meaning. I'm not sure if this was the intent of the trailer's producers, but even if it was, I don't think this trailer doesn't work as well at communicating the game's experience. By following conventional game trailer production practices of "make the game look cool and don't show mistakes" it actually goes against the vibe of the game (or is so on point with the satire you can't tell it's satire)
The launch trailer goes back to the tone of the announce trailer and does an even better job depicting the game's humor. Once again there's a voiceover for this different propaganda video. This video is even more absurd because it includes things which would undermine the goal of making the military look competent. The shot of the soldier making a dramatic pose is undercut by the fact they're stepping on someone who is still alive and crying out in pain. My favorite is the series of shots of soldiers declaring themselves to the cause with one of a soldier suddenly killed by an alien attack.
The gameplay section of the trailer feels mostly the same as the previous trailer, but crucially, it includes a handful of soldier deaths where their bodies are humorously blown up and tossed around like rag dolls. This is all the funnier because if this were the real world these fumbling moments would not work as good propaganda (but they put it out anyway)
Without these deaths early in the trailer this would feel much more similar to the "Report For Duty" trailer. Seeing these humorous deaths provides context which changes our perception of the later shots. I do wish there were more deaths, but I still think it works. I also very much appreciate that the last shot of the trailer is two soldiers embracing rather than something more typical like an alien roaring into there camera. This emphasizes the game's hook of teamwork.
Overall I think the trailers for Helldivers 2 are excellent and demonstrative of the fine line between making the game look cool and creating an accurate depiction of the experience of playing the game. This is how much difference the direction of a game trailer can make through carefully setting the goals and then creating and selecting the shots to work towards that goal. In a Call of Duty game, the player deaths would feel very out of place because those games are very much about making the American military look super cool (and it could be argued the games work as propaganda). But for Helldivers 2's marketing, showing the mix of gameplay highs and lows works just right.
