Video game trailers are the appetizer of game marketing; if they aren’t tasty, no one will stick around for seconds. Well-edited cinematic trailers have turned garbage games into best-sellers, and poorly slapped-together previews have condemned many a masterpiece to “cult classic” status.
A good game trailer makes a potential player feel like their game collection will never be complete if the subject isn’t part of it. The most iconic game trailers do this in a way that gamers remember long after getting the game. Here are the best trailers for video games, ranked on how enticing they make the game look.
8. The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild introduced a new era of Hyrule
The years after The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword were rough for the Zelda series. Eager to avoid a repeat of Skyward Sword‘s less-than-stellar reception, Nintendo confined Zelda to handhelds for about half a decade. This made the moment that the first official trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild dropped even more spectacular.
This trailer showed Zelda fans their first in-depth look at a new version of Hyrule, overtaken by nature in the aftermath of a fiery apocalypse. Sweeping views of lush landscapes are mixed with some iconic shots of classic Zelda mainstays like Master Sword, Hyrule Castle, and the then-newest incarnations of Link and Princess Zelda, clueing fans in to the fact that this new installment would break new ground while staying true to the franchise’s core spirit.
Even more enticing, the trailer revealed almost nothing about the game’s plot. Combine this with a few tantalizing shots of the terrifying Guardians, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for hype.
7. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
The original Final Fantasy VII Remake had a great trailer. Even the PS3 tech demo that erroneously hinted at a remake of Final Fantasy VII rocked, but the trailer we got blew those out of the water. Why? Because it perfectly combines old and new.
Whereas the trailer for FF7 Remake hid the fact that it would feature drastic story changes, its sequel’s new trailer displayed the story additions with pride and gave players plenty to speculate about. Is Sephiroth still going to be evil by the end? Is he going through a Vegeta-like redemption arc? Will he give his own life to save Aerith? No one knew, but this had fans thinking about all the possibilities. How often does a trailer for a remake accomplish that?
It also shows everything you want from the old game, like Vincent, Chocobos, Chocobo racing, G-bike racing, and, the instant new staple, the Segway. This blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar gave Final Fantasy fans plenty of reasons to see what Square Enix was up to with this bold reimagining of one of their most iconic games.
6. Resident Evil 1 Remake makes an old classic new again
In 2001, Capcom permanently silenced everyone complaining about Nintendo games being too family-friendly. They showed the trailer for the GameCube’s remake of the original Resident Evil, the first product of what would end up being a rather tumultuous alliance between the two companies.
It first surfaced in the now sadly gone Gametrailers.com, years before YouTube emerged from the primordial digital flames. The Remake trailer revealed the game’s graphics and level design upgrades, and snippets of redone dialogue and the terrifying new zombie designs showed that genuine horror had replaced the original game’s unintentional campiness.
It was as good as any trailer for a Hollywood film out at the time, and certainly better than the trailer for any horror movie coming out in the early 2000s.
5. Dead Island reminds us not everyone makes it out alive in a horror game
Most people know more about Dead Island‘s trailer than they do about the game itself. That’s because this cinematic masterpiece is better than the game. I’m not even saying that the game isn’t good, but the trailer is a marvelous(ly misleading) masterpiece.
Playing in reverse from one of the most jarring establishing shots I’ve ever seen, Dead Island‘s trailer recounts the tragic final day of an innocent family caught in the zombie outbreak that devours Banoi Island. With a melancholic score and an ending that hammers home the love this family shared, this three-minute trailer does something many zombie films cannot do over their entire, hours-long runtime: make you feel bad about the nameless victims strewn about in the background.
This trailer is so iconic that it received its own Wikipedia page. Its willingness to show a child’s death and transformation into a zombie actually caused a bit of controversy. In hindsight, though, many agree that this is one of the best video game trailers ever made.
4. Halo 3 made players “Believe” in Master Chief
Modern video game trailers are either entirely CGI-rendered or gameplay-based. The people behind this trailer were so confident in Halo 3‘s prowess that they ignored all that and just went for a near-animation-less recording of a sweeping action figure diorama depicting the Covenant’s apparent victory over humanity. That’s not the only risk taken here. They also traded the game’s epic soundtrack for a more somber tune that accompanies a moment where the Master Chief faces seemingly insurmountable odds.
Halo 2 ended on a divisive cliffhanger, but this trailer made it clear Bungie had no intention of letting their best-selling trilogy end and anything less than a triumphant finale. When people talk about the famous Gears of War trailer featuring Mad World by Gary Jules; I can’t help but think that this one pulls off the tricky balance between badassery and emotion much better.
3. The unlikely Killzone PS3 trailer
A good trailer is art, but this one showed that a good trailer can also shift the direction of an entire industry. It shows unbelievable graphics, marvelous particle effects, and two massive armies of soldiers who know their roles to the letter. A game capable of all this would impress even nowadays. Imagine the despair on Sony’s competitors’ faces when they saw this. They knew that they either couldn’t compete or that they couldn’t immediately prove that it wasn’t actually gameplay.
Even back then, many doubted that it was real. Still, there was no precedent of Sony presenting pre-rendered footage as if it were actual gameplay. There just was no containing the power of that “what if” factor. We later learned that “Killzone 2” wasn’t even in production by the time Sony showed that. The footage was just an “internal vision demo” by Guerrilla Games that the company never intended the public to see.
But this footage was very real. It was terrific, even if the graphics weren’t as good as what we got in the final product. One could make a powerful argument that this trailer was misleading, but it accomplished what every video game trailer sets out to do: turn its subject into a best-seller.
2. Elden Ring sets the stage for an epic adventure
Many doubted Elden Ring could live up to the astronomical expectations on its shoulders. Many gamers even theorized that cancellation could be in the cards after such a long radio silence. Then, when fans’ hopes were at their lowest, this marvelous trailer, which contains only segments of actual gameplay segments, showed up and threw a dump truck’s worth of kindling onto the fire.
In one swift motion, this trailer turned the tide against people claiming that FromSoftware would never top their work in Dark Souls. Even though I don’t think we should put too much hope on a trailer, I can see why that happened. We got a preview of some of Elden Ring‘s best bosses, weapons, and areas, and they look as impressive here as they do in the final product.
1. The trailer that revealed Metal Gear Solid to the world
I see trailers for every single mainline Metal Gear Solid game in similar lists, but I never see this one anywhere. How?!
I remember putting my Demo One CD inside my PS1, clicking on a video for Metal Gear Solid, and getting blown away. The song, the mysterious but immediately out-of-this-world cool characters, the setting, the action, the quick edits. I felt no surprise when I later learned that Hideo Kojima had always wanted to be a film director. Perhaps he was just too ahead of the game back then.
Out of nowhere, every other game out at the time looked worse because of a video of a game I knew nothing about. They still do.
