Trailer Research

This cinematic teaser trailer is for the popular game Halo 2. This is a military sci-fi first-person shooter game set on an alien planet. Due to the fact that this poster is advertising a sequel, it does not need to explain that much about the game itself. This trailer therefore focuses more of its attention on being eye-catching and setting the viewer's expectations for the game. It gives the viewer a really good idea of the scope and storyline of the game and showcases all aspects of the game's potential.

It uses an interesting aesthetic in order to hook its audience; alongside a dark, muted colour palette, this trailer also utilises a lot of the actual in-game colours. This is still a very muted colour palette, however occasional pieces of bright futuristic blue are seen when relevant. This shows off the game's setting of outer space, as it is more of an aspect of the game's lore than an asset of the aesthetics. When it comes to showing off the game's characters and assets, the trailer obviously does not contain any actual models from the game; however, you get to see some of the more important enemies and assets. This gives the viewer a wide view of the game as a whole, while still keeping it suspenseful and intriguing.

The target audience for this game, as studies show, is men between the ages of 18 and 24 who enjoy playing multiplayer. This suggests that the players are going to be less interested in, perhaps, the logistics of the worldbuilding or character arcs and are going to be more interested in the mechanics and aesthetics.

This is a teaser trailer for the October 2022 Minecraft Live, an annual livestream run by the game's creators where fans can see sneak peaks of the new update, vote on future additions to the game, and watch live gameplay. This is less of a teaser trailer for the game as a whole and more for the 1.19 update, or “The Wild Update”, which was released in June of the same year. Still, this trailer did an amazing job of peaking viewer interest, showcasing the update, and overall being incredibly fun and engaging to watch.

Like the Halo trailer, there is no actual gameplay shown in this video, as it is mainly about showing off aesthetics and character. Minecraft is an incredibly diverse game, especially when it comes to aesthetics; the colour scheme and environment can vary wildly depending on where or when you are. Instead of working against this fact, the trailer does a remarkable job of utilising it. You can see the frogs (which were the new mob added in the 1.19 update) walking through various environments, and each environment showcases a different cohesive colour scheme, which gives the viewer a much wider scope of the game's potential. It especially zeroes in on the other new aspect of this update, the Ancient Cities and the Warden (shown in the bottom left screenshot). It achieves all of this while still being a cohesive trailer, as the frogs never change from being the centre point of the video.

This trailer maintains the simplified style of the other Minecraft advertisements, which caters to the game's target audience —  studies show that the target demographic for Minecraft is kids aged 6–13, who are perhaps more interested in creativity than strategy. Also, the dynamic animation style that this trailer is done in means it is so fun to watch and really grabs your attention and makes you want to engage with the new update. It is really clear what the update is about, which is essential to keeping the viewer's attention. Something interesting to note about its trailer is the fact that, specifically, the frogs are the focus point. While yes, they are an important part of the update, there are many other aspects that are just as important, if not more so. However, for the game's target audience, frogs are certainly the most exciting aspect of the update; they're cute, they're simple, and therefore they are given the most attention when it comes to showing them off. Because this is not a trailer for the game itself, it does not need to spend as much energy showing off all the different mechanics; it only needs to convince you of the new update. Using the frogs specifically as the main focus is a very smart move on the part of the creators, as it appeals to the target demographic specifically.