Occasionally, I get asked what I get out of a game trailer. The answer is a complicated one, so what better way to discuss it than in a blog? Well, I suppose I could do a highly-edited video where I narrate over a series of shots of me in random locations, but\u2026 Nah, we\u2019re just gonna go with the blog. I hope some game industry folks read this one, because I personally believe notes can be taken from it. With that, let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n
Game trailers are an interesting beast. We blind gamers don\u2019t hate them, but there a few beats a game trailer has to hit before we can truly appreciate them. Let\u2019s highlight those things by talking about the worst kind of game trailer for a blind person. It\u2019s pretty simple, really. If the audio of a trailer primarily consists of music, it\u2019s a bad trailer for us. Luckily for you, I am prepared to provide examples. Say hello to the resident evil 7 announcement trailer, found at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9YetHMnhnhM<\/p>\n
We can take a couple things from this trailer. The ambience of rain pelting a roof is gloomy, the length of time the character takes to answer the phone is suspicious, and the way he says \u201cShe\u2019s back,\u201d is ominous. After that, guess what? We\u2019re done. The trailer fades into music, and while the song is creepy and contains some discordant audio samples, we are told literally nothing. Even when it\u2019s all over, we don\u2019t even know what game we just watched a trailer for. The character, and thus his voice, are unfamiliar to us, so we have no association whatsoever. This trailer, which got loads of hype afterward, is actually useless to us.<\/p>\n
There are many trailers like that. EA, sadly, is often guilty of trailers without meaningful audio. Now, though, let\u2019s climb the ladder a bit. I introduce you to, and link you to, the E32018 Cyberpunk 2077 trailer. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iXaogHDLosI<\/p>\n
This trailer is better. Why? Because we have narration. We have a story to follow that the trailer is telling us. If we\u2019ve been paying attention, we probably even know what game this trailer is for, as it literally mentioned the year 2077. There are sound effects in the background, and while we have no idea if those are actual gameplay sounds, we can determine that some pretty cool stuf is happening. And yeah, OK, the music is bumpin. Still, it could be argued that we don\u2019t know enough. While we\u2019re getting a feel for the game\u2019s tone thanks to that narrator, we don\u2019t actually know what\u2019s going on visually. I remember how cool people were saying this trailer looked after it dropped, talking about the blades that come out of your wrists and such, and I was just like, \u201cHuh? Wow, that\u2019s cool.\u201d The talk after is the first I knew of it. So this trailer was better, yes, but it generated curiosity more than it generated hype. \u201cOh man, this sounds cool. I wonder what\u2019s happening? What does that sound mean?\u201d And so on.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s time to show a trailer that can definitely generate hype, even for a blind gamer. The third rung of our trailer ladder. I now give you the E3 2018 Last of Us 2 Gameplay Trailer. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=btmN-bWwv0A<\/p>\n
Now this is one to talk about, folks. There\u2019s no narration here, so at first there is some confusion. But keep listening, and you soon hear the familiar voice of Elly, one of the stars of the Last of Us Part 1, and this game\u2019s protagonist. Suddenly, you know just what game this is. So you listen harder, trying to glean what information you can, and boy oh boy is there a lot to glean. Even the party here sounds full of people, their voices coming from all around, showing you how good this game\u2019s audio will be. That is then bolstered as we move further into the trailer, where we get to hear Elly sneaking about and stealthily taking out her foes. The audio hear is a marvel, showing off positioning and echo effects, and excellent use of character breaths and sound effects. There are times when I questioned whether what we were hearing was gameplay, only to realize it was thanks to the return of a couple sound effects from the first game. This trailer is mindblowing, and despite having no narration, does its job of generating hype for the game. I have watched this trailer multiple times myself, because there is so much to pick up from its audio. This is a good trailer.<\/p>\n
There is of course, a glaring problem with this trailer, however. I knew what it was for both because I recognized Elly\u2019s voice, but even before that, because I recognized the song that was playing as part of Sony\u2019s interesting presentation of the trailer when it was being shown live at E3. The Last of Us main theme was played live before the trailer was shown, and it\u2019s a theme I am familiar with, as my fianc\u00e9 has played the first game twice. However, had I not possessed that information, had I not recognized that theme or that voice, I would probably still love the trailer, but have no idea at all what game it was for. In this way, its lack of narration is still a problem. But don\u2019t worry, there is one more rung on this ladder.<\/p>\n
We now come to the reason I decided to write this article. The very trailer that cemented in my head what I wanted this article to be. And, interestingly enough, we do this by going back to a game we\u2019ve already talked about, Cyberpunk 2077. Beware, if you click the link below, and haven\u2019t seen this gameplay trailer yet, you\u2019re going to be sucked in for 48 straight minutes. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vjF9GgrY9c0<\/p>\n
Seriously, folks, I just did the search to find that trailer, clicked the link so I could get that address to paste in here, and was still tempted to watch it again myself. This trailer has everything, even if you\u2019re blind. Right off the bat, about 20 seconds in, the narrator, (yes the whole thing is narrated), directly introduces the game. There is no question of what we\u2019re watching here. As we move forward, the narrator remains a solid reference point for events occurring in the trailer, keeping us in the know about what\u2019s going on, or what mechanic is being shown. With nearly complete knowledge and understanding of the gameplay we\u2019re hearing, we can then proceed to admire the audio. We can listen to how every dialog choice doesn\u2019t seem to break the flow. How everything just smoothly moves like a cutscene despite all of it being gameplay. We can imagine what an entire, huge open-world RPG will be like if it\u2019s all as good as this demo, and we can struggle to contain that awesomeness in our heads. It is a real struggle, let me tell you. Even in this day and age, I find it difficult to imagine a 100+ hour game, assuming this reaches the scale of the Witcher 3, that maintains this level of awesomeness.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the point is that this trailer\u2019s amazing. It uses narration to guide us while giving us a healthy dose of actual gameplay. It\u2019s essentially perfect for us. Now, I\u2019m not saying all trailers need to be 48 minutes, but this type of trailer, with these specific qualities, works wonders to excite us about a game. Before, I was just curious. Now, I\u2019m completely sold. This is one of those games I will ache for, though I know I won\u2019t be able to play it. It\u2019s a happy sad feeling all at once.<\/p>\n
So take note, trailer people. You can show us your game in a trailer too, just give us audio. Honestly, it\u2019s actually sort of baffling when you encounter trailers like the RE7 announcement, as a lot of developers are coming to understand that audio is as important as graphics. It\u2019s as though the people who decide what\u2019s in a trailer are still behind. All of this could probably be fixed with audio described versions of game trailers, but I don\u2019t think the industry has reached that level quite yet. I really, really hope you\u2019ve found this blog intriguing, and thanks as always for reading it. Continue to be awesome!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Occasionally, I get asked what I get out of a game trailer. The answer is a complicated one, so what better way to discuss it than in a blog? Well, I suppose I could do a highly-edited video where I narrate over a series of shots of me in random locations, but\u2026 Nah, we\u2019re just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[78,97,248,46,137,250,60,246,42,44,43,247,29,249,91,34],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-accessible-games","tag-accessible-gaming","tag-cyberpunk-2077","tag-e3","tag-e3-2016","tag-e32018","tag-ea","tag-game-trailers","tag-microsoft","tag-playstation-4","tag-ps4","tag-resident-evil-7","tag-sony","tag-the-last-of-us-part-2","tag-video-games","tag-xbox-one"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}