Hey, remember when video game trailers had sound effects?

A retrospective on the music-only game trailer.

Gears of War has a lot to answer for. Back in 2006, the original Gears trailer was a revelation, eschewing all foley for a low key emotional soundtrack, bleeding out the colour and playing up loss and the desperation of the situation. Innovative at the time, it still holds up today.

A genre was born: the music-only video game trailer. The traits of the genre are as follows:

• No sounds effects
• Emotional low tempo soundtrack
• Scenes of destruction and violence, vividly contrasting with the lack of sound
• An obvious emotional context
• Cinematic direction

Whilst it is arguable whether the music-only treatment was invented in the original Gears of War trailer, this landmark video certainly brought it to mainstream gaming and made a huge impact. And inevitably, as we have seen all too much in the games industry of late, it was copied many times over in trailers for other games. Some of which were more successful than others.

Gears of War 2

Gears 2 and 3 revisited this treatment. This made sense, as the original trailer had a lot of impact, and the trailers for the subsequent games evoked the first successfully. They started to feel like a series touchstone.

The Gears 2 trailer probably tried a little too hard in the emotion stakes. The focus pull to the poppy and the weathered photo of family is a little trite.

Gears of War 3

The Gears 3 trailer is interesting because it adds some selective sound effects at key moments. Reverb is added to help the sound effects stand out as a directed moments rather than background.

Fable 3

Okay, let’s take the Gears formula and apply it to Fable 3. And……

This one doesn’t quite hit the mark. The tone is off, the treatment doesn’t match the source material. Fable 3 is a lighter, warmer, but less epic game than this trailer suggests. After all, this was a game that let you grab someone by the hair and fart in their face.

It’s such a shame; evoking the artistry of American Civil War paintings (and a touch of the Dutch masters) was a clever idea. The lighting and models are fantastic. But the music-only treatment seems forced, as if to fit a popular trend rather than being designed this way to achieve something in particular.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

The effect can, however, work well for games other than Gears of War. This clip is nicely directed, well put together. The emotional hook, so key to this genre, is seeing Ezio in an older, more vulnerable form, seemingly prone to attack. But then he turns on the ass kicking to sate our bloodlust.

A long running time of three minutes and twenty seconds means we’re in full-on music video territory here. As a result, it lacks the one minute punch of the Gears trailers, but mostly manages to keep the audience’s attention. 

Like the Fable 3 trailer, the visuals are pre-rendered, where the Gears trailers were purposefully made to look very similar to the game engine itself.

Crysis 2

This trailer stands as testament to the importance of music choice is for this genre. Here, the vocal delivery is so cloying and saccharin as to prove a distraction. Even though production values are unquestionably high, the temptation to reach for the close window button is huge. 

The treatment implies a little poetry, a little soul, where in fact there is very little to work with. The appearance of the guy in the muscle suit just underlines this.

Halo: Reach

Even Halo, the grandaddy of the console FPS, had to get in on the action. Production values are top notch as you would expect, with some epic shots of future war and destruction. It does suffer a little from the “guys in big suits” syndrome, until the emotional context is revealed with the smashing of the visor and the reveal of the (*gasp*) female soldier.

If there is a gripe, it is that it’s a little sad that the series that did so much to bring the FPS to the console mainstream falls in line behind Gears with this trailer. With this kind of budget and being such an industry heavyweight, there was the chance to innovate and create a bigger impact.

Infamous 2

This is what happens when you try to deliver this formula on a budget. Just a fly-around of the game world with the simulation paused. Whilst I have nothing against House of the Rising Sun in principal, it seems a poor fit for this trailer.

To be fair, many trailers are produced during the hype cycle for a game these days, some of which receive a lot of care and attention, whilst others are obviously a little more throw-away.

Killzone 3

And this is what happens when you leave the emotional hook behind for a couple of minutes of pure gunplay. As a result, it feels somewhat lacking. What is the story here? Lots of generic action, and nothing memorable. No beginning, middle, or end to speak of. Remember the first videos of Killzone 2, and how everyone was excited about it? Those early glimpses of Killzone 2 encapsulated the hopes for this generation of hardware. This trailer fell short of the mark of its predecessor.

So lots of trailers employing this effect, with varying amounts of success. When it works, it works well, but it seems that some of these videos use the treatment simply because everyone else is doing it, rather than part of some grand design. 

It is easy to see why this formula is used so much. It’s a marketing shortcut which succinctly conveys to the audience that the game is an epic gaming blockbuster, worthy of your attention. It looks good in movie theatres, plays well on TV. The casual non-gaming viewer, who should not be ignored due to their present purchasing role, will get it. However, there are now so many of these trailers, the danger is that by employing this initially striking effect, you will be lost in the noise rather than make an impact. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what a game trailer is for? To stand out from the crowd, to attract attention? 

Dead Island

You don’t have to break with the formula entirely to create a more interesting trailer. Take the Dead Island trailer for instance. Yes, it too owes a lot to the Gears formula, but it also adds a few neat twists. The footage is run in reverse, leaving you wondering not what happens next, but what happens before, a little like the film, Memento. This question is partly answered by the interleaved forward running action, with full-on visceral sound effects, which meets the timeline of the reverse footage in the middle. It hooks the viewer, it asks questions, and it answers them in a way which is memorable. And plus, they played the dead child card. Emotional checkbox well and truly ticked.

And what was the result? Dead Island went from completely off the radar to become one of the most anticipated game releases of 2011. In terms of marketing impact, that makes it one of the most successful video game trailers for some time.

Just goes to show, a little innovation can make all the difference.