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With the rise of AAA games delivering more cinematic storylines these days, it was only a matter of time until the gaming industry began taking it market cues from Hollywood. So, today I am going to recommend 10 well-crafted game trailers to you.
10. Dragon Age II
Crafted by Digic Pictures (undoubtedly in the top 2 in terms of cinematic production companies), the trailer for Dragon Age II begins with a creepy old woman’s voiceover. While a horned demon decimates a group of overmatched soldiers and proceeds to chop up their king with a two-handed axe, she waxes poetic about the varying ways in which men choose to either flee from or rail against their destinies.
Enter Hawk, the main character of the game, who goes toe-to-toe with the demon amidst the crumbling marble columns of some sort of temple. The cinematography is fantastic, the choreography intense and easy to follow, and the clarity and detail in the mo-capped movements and expressions of the two combatants borders on crystal. When Hawk taps into his mage powers to rip his enemy in two and then paints his face with demon blood in a symbolic display of conquering destiny, you’re more than ready to dive in and see what the developers have cooked up in the latest chapter in the Dragon Age saga.
9. The Elder Scrolls Online
The Elder Scrolls Online has not one, but four incredible cinematic trailers, released between 2013 and 2015 and produced by Studio Blur. In order, they include “The Alliances,” “The Arrival,” “The Siege,” and “The Confrontation.” There is no dialogue to speak of, but you get the gist of the story. Competing factions are vying for control when a foreign, dark and demonic force interjects, forcing the unlikely allies to band together against a common threat.
The art design and fight choreography of these trailers, as well as the scope of the siege in part 3, is among the best I’ve ever seen rendered, and a hooded assassin with black and gold armor steals every scene he’s in. Aside from him, there’s a redheaded Elven Sorceress who wreaks havoc in the second trailer and a brutish northern warrior who fights like a panzer tank en route to the final clash that sets up the game to follow.
8. Assassin’s Creed Revelations
In Assassins Creed: Revelations, players will follow the story of three different assassins as they come to a close. Altair, from the first Assassins Creed game; Ezio Auditore, the protagonist in Assassins Creed II and Brotherhood and Desmond Miles, the modern-day protagonist featured in every Assassins Creed game to date.
In the trailer above, Ubisoft highlights what Ezio is fighting for and the Templar burden he has been fighting against for all of his adult life.
7. Witcher 3
What is this, a trailer or an animated short? This sequence doesn’t even take place in the game, all we’re doing here is setting the scene for one of the best games of all time. A fantastic example of trailers having become an artform unto themselves.
6. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
This cinematic game title for “World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King” is an epic and powerful piece that wields some magnificent shots and some seriously beautiful animation. Monumental matte paintings and a dynamic sound track are the icing on cake.
5. STAR WARS: The Old Republic
This game actually has a whole series of excellent cinematic clips, but as you’ll see as we go down this list, it’s usually the first that’s remembered as the best, as it’s a game’s debut trailer that often makes the biggest impression. As it did here, this clip making the most of people’s fond feelings towards the words “BioWare” and “KOTOR”.
4. Mass Effect 3: Take Earth Back Cinematic Trailer"We are excited to be able to give gamers an expansive demo that will put them right on the front lines of this all-out galactic war," said Casey Hudson, Executive Producer of the Mass Effect series. "The entire scale of the game is bigger than anything we've ever done. With its intense action, deep customization and raw emotional power, Mass Effect 3 will deliver a spectacular action RPG experience to fans of the series and newcomers alike."
In Mass Effect 3, players will be thrust into an all-out galactic war to take Earth back and save the entire galaxy, assuming the role of Commander Shepard, a war-torn veteran who's willing to do whatever it takes to eliminate this nearly unstoppable foe. With a team of elite, battle-hardened soldiers at your side, each player decides how they will take Earth back, from the weapons and abilities they utilize to the relationships they forge or break. Mass Effect 3 also features a new co-operative gameplay mode that allows fans to experience the war from a different perspective.
3. HALO 3
The final installment in the original Halo trilogy, Halo 3 $11.00 at Amazon not only picked up where the previous game’s very controversial cliffhanger left off, but — at the time — was viewed as the last “real” Halo game. Three more were made after that, and Microsoft has already unveiled Halo 5. Though the series has enjoyed some stellar trailers and commercials over the years, nothing comes close to the famous “Believe” trailer. It features an intense battlefield scene, but everything is still as a camera pans and zooms through the paused action. On its own, it tells the story and havoc of war — it doesn’t matter that you don’t necessarily know who the armor-clad soldiers are or why they’re battling aliens. The meticulous, tragic detail speaks volumes on its own.
2. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
While not introducing specific characters from the upcoming game, nor showing hero Adam Jensen at all, the trailer serves as a powerful introduction to the war-torn world of Mankind Divided, showing how “mechanical apartheid” is tearing the world apart after a hack causes “augmented” humans to go temporarily crazy, and therefore become untrusted by the general public and the government.
The spot focuses on a specific unnamed couple, the woman with an augmented arm, who tries to kill her husband during the hack. Over the course of the four minute spot, the two go through a wide range of emotions, from the shock of the hack, to the acceptance of the issue, to fear it could happen again, to horror when they’re finally ripped apart by new segregation laws. All of this is set against the backdrop of wider unrest in the world, and it’s set to yet another amazing soundtrack from composer Sascha Dikiciyan.
1. Dead Island
If ever there were a video game trailer that could double as an award-winning short film, it would be 2011’s Dead Island. In fact, this one did win several niche awards and earned recognition by the L.A. Times as one of the best video game trailers of all time.
In the spot, we’re shown a devastating and heart-breaking instance of family tragedy in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. While that in and of itself isn’t game-changing, the way in which Audiomotion Studios shows us the scene in reverse order makes it all the more chilling. By the middle of the trailer, in which a young girl’s father struggles to save her, we’re hoping against hope for them to triumph, even though we were shown the end result in the opening reel.
Source:
therobotsvoice,
kotaku,
geek
