How to create effective Video Game Trailers

Creating a great video game trailer can be a daunting task, but it’s an essential part of promoting your game and generating interest from potential players. A well-crafted trailer does not only need to grab the player’s attention, but even more importantly, makes them understand what they are getting.

Here are five tips to make sure that your game trailer does not only look nice, but actually makes players buy your game.

1. Don’t waste time on long pre-rolls

People’s attention spans are short, and they want to see your game right away. Don’t make them sit through a long sequence of random company logos at the beginning of your trailer. Sometimes new game studios might show a lot of logos in the hope of emulating expensive Hollywood blockbuster trailers, but aim instead to jump right into your game and show off what makes it unique.

If you’re a super-star game studio already and your brand carries a ton of reputation, then congrats(!) and feel free to put your logo at the start of the logo. For most studios it is better to have the logo somewhere at the end of the video.

Try to keep the total trailer length under two minutes if possible. If you have a lot of content to show, consider creating multiple trailers or a longer “extended cut” version for interested viewers.

2. Feature in-game UI in your trailer

Your trailer should effectively communicate what your game is all about. Showing in-game UI is a great way to do that. It helps viewers understand what they’re getting and what genre your game falls under. Communication is the most important job of your trailer, not tricking customers.

3. Focus on gameplay

Some games have multiple trailers: one for gameplay, one for narrative/cinematic. If you only create one, make sure it is the one about gameplay. Unless you’re tying into a well-recognized IP, your players won’t know the world that your game is set in and will have little pre-existing emotional investment in watching a long cinematic.

Make sure to show each main gameplay system at least once. Again, this not only helps communicate the type of mechanics that the players will engage with, but it will also show off the game’s scope that you’ve carefully created for them.

One interesting and fairly underused idea is also to communicate what your game is by explicitly stating what it is NOT. See this Islanders trailer for an example of specifically countering wrong assumptions that players might have:

4. End with a call-to-action

The last frame of your trailer should end on a call-to-action. Don’t make the mistake of fading to black or adding random post-credits scenes. If the video app automatically stops on the last frame, you want it to show your call-to-action, not a black frame.

Make sure to only use one call to action, so that there is no ambiguity on what interested players should be doing right after watching the trailer. If you already have a well-designed Steam page (you should!), it is a good idea to ask them to wishlist your game right away.

5. Add voice-over

Adding voice-over is super cost-effective for raising your trailer production value. There is probably not a single thing that can add as much perceived quality with relatively little effort.

Getting this short recording of a professional voice actor into our Curious Expedition 1 trailer cost us less than $100, but elevates the trailer A LOT:

You can also experiment with collaborating with streamers and using their footage in your trailer, or even using player audio. This Eve Online trailer is my favorite example of using actual player voices:

On its own this trailer is actually not a great example, since it breaks a lot of rules laid out here, but considering this is probably the 30th trailer created by the Eve team it works wonderfully by focusing on a specific aspect of their game.

In conclusion, creating a great video game trailer takes time and effort, but it’s worth it. Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to creating a trailer that effectively communicates what your game is all about and generates interest from potential players. Good luck!