Video Game Posters

This poster 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, and so this poster focuses more of its attention on being eye-catching and setting the viewer's expectations for the game. It shows off the setting (as seen by the space ships and post-apocalyptic environment), the main character (who is of course front-and-centre), and most importantly, the aesthetic of the game.

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 poster sports a primarily orange and brown colour palette, which, according to studies, is energetic, urgent, and vintage-looking. This poster is also extremely desaturated; this is a very interesting choice, given that this game is set in the future. A lot of futuristic games utilise bright, saturated colours in order to show vibrancy in the technology (purple and blue are common colour schemes for similar reasons). This game, however, is a lot more neutral with its colour scheme, mainly being desaturated orange and green; this is done in order to keep that sense of vintage war since this game's target audience is more likely to be receptive to something more war-oriented than sci-fi-oriented. These themes come across loud and clear in this promotional poster.

Another really important thing that a promotional poster must do is build anticipation for the game. This is achieved by a lot of posters with the use of a short slogan; this poster is one such example. The text on the poster reads "Earth will never be the same". I think it goes without saying that this is an extremely intriguing thing to put on a poster and definitely peaks viewer interest. That, combined with the seemingly contrasting setting and aesthetic (sci-fi vs. vintage), means that anybody looking at this poster is going to want to investigate the game, especially if they already know about the franchise. Overall, this poster is incredibly effective in all areas and does a great job of pinning its target demographic and giving them what they want to see.

Halo is a very old game as far as video games go; the first game came out in 2001, advertised as a shooter game about sci-fi and war. Since 2001, it has developed into a ten-part franchise and even a TV show.

One of the most recognisable parts of any video game is its logo; this is what defines the brand, the first thing you see when you open up the game, and often the centrepiece of any piece of advertising. As you can see to the left, the Halo logo has gone through many iterations; however, it remains consistent in its key elements throughout. The text remains typography-inspired, and in every iteration, the dot in the O remains. While the colour scheme varies throughout time, it remains mostly black, grey, light blue, or silver, and almost every iteration has a gradient and 3D effect. This is all in keeping with the sci-fi genre and aesthetic, and it keeps the games feeling different in their era and style, but fundamentally the same in regards to branding.

As I mentioned previously, Halo has also been developed into a TV show. Developing a TV show from a video game is no easy feat since you must take the engaging plot developed by the game and turn it into something that can stand on its own. Plus, with the TV show coming out in 2022 and the game being a household name by this point, it was important to keep the show feeling new and fresh, but familiar and in keeping with the game's plot and identity. The TV show managed this, as evidenced by it being Paramount+’s most-watched series premiere worldwide within 24 hours of its release, and it did this by keeping the cast familiar and by branding itself to the loyal audience that was already invested in the game.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Minecraft. This is an extremely popular sandbox/survival game made entirely of blocks. Like Halo, it has a massive fanbase, and you are pretty much expected to already know what it is. Despite that, this poster does a very good job of putting the game's best foot forward. Just by looking at it, you get a good idea of the aesthetic, the mechanics, and the possibilities (of which there are many, a fact that this game prides itself on).

Studies show that the target demographic for Minecraft is kids aged 6–13, who are perhaps more interested in creativity than strategy. Therefore, this poster must reflect the simplicity and shine that the target audience is after.

The colour scheme of this poster reflects the game itself; it does not have a particular hue, instead sporting a wide variety of colours, and everything is extremely saturated. If you look at Minecraft gameplay, you can see that the aesthetic of this game is extremely stylized, with blocky colours and not much texture—each block has a 16x16 pixel design, which does not leave much room for detailed textures. If you look at this poster closely, you can see that it actually accentuates this stylized design even more by making everything even more saturated and even less detailed. This makes everything easier to see, which is beneficial as this game's target audience is primary-school-aged kids, and so making everything more simplified and colourful is more likely to grab their attention.

When it comes to building anticipation and showing off the game's setting and mechanics, this poster does a really good job. As you can see, the poster has the two default skins that the player can choose in the centre of the image, on top of a grass hill, over a vast blank world. This shows the viewer that this is a sandbox game and displays the landscape that blank Minecraft worlds can produce. The poster also displays some of the game's main mobs: there's the dog, who is able to be tamed, front and centre. Then there are the pig and sheep, who are docile animals you might encounter, and then some of the hostile mobs at the bottom, slightly more hidden away. This shows the viewer the scope of the game, all in a very condensed space. There is no text on this poster, but again, this is a game that virtually everybody knows the basics of, and of course, it would be difficult to condense all of Minecraft's possibilities into just one sentence. Overall, this is a great poster that is easy to see and understand, which is fundamental when it comes to capturing the attention of the target demographic of younger kids and teens.

This game was first released in 2009 and has since amassed a huge following and fanbase. Sources show that this game currently has over 132 million players each month. Players love the versatility of the game, as well as its consistent style and identity in its branding.

The logo for this game, created by the Scandinavian company Bold, is incredibly versatile, well thought out, and easy to understand. The creators of the logo have specifically created it so that it not only acts as a logo for the game but also so that it can be used in advertising for updates, merchandise, and additional features such as Minecraft Realms and Minecraft Education. They do this using a technique creatively named "one grid to rule them all", where they place every aspect of the logo on a comprehensive 3D pixel grid using perspective planes. This makes it so that all of the additional text exists on the same 3D plane as the Minecraft logo, creating the illusion of consistent space and making the additional text look like it belongs with the Minecraft logo. This is an incredibly useful tool, and as you can see to the bottom left, it has produced consistently good logos that not only keep with the brand identity but build on it and improve it with each iteration.