Trailers are one of the most important parts of setting in Kickstarting the hype machine around any visual medium. We’ve seen quite a few teasers over the past few years, some that will stick with us for years like the one for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood or maybe even the multi-million budgeted cinematic trailers from Blizzard for their countless World of Warcraft expansions. Many directors and game studios decide to be very subtle with their trailers and try to only show a few details whereas others enjoy the spotlight and use that time to boast the upcoming features of their new game. A lot of thought goes into the creation of a trailer, from lighting to acting and even sometimes to actual gameplay they might show.
So with that in mind, publishers and game developers are working harder than ever nowadays to provide an enriched and epic experience whilst watching the trailer alone. And so, with better technologies and better tools at their disposal, they can now create trailers that are better than ever. In this article, we’ll be delving into 10 different trailers of games that are to be released in 2014 or rumoured to be released, and giving a few more details on the game themselves and their backgrounds.
10. Shadow of Mordor
Middle-Earth, that name seems familiar. The Lord of the Rings universe is beyond legendary, and little has been explored outside of the original lore written by Tolkien. Shadow of Mordor does just this, and tells the story of Talion - the Guardian of the Black Gate of Mordor - after being raised from the dead following the murder of he and his family at the hands of Sauron’s armies. He’s revived, of course, and with his new-found talents and skills he heads into Mordor to exact his revenge. Along the way, he’ll interact with a number of established characters, including Gollum. How… precious.
From what we’ve been able to see in terms of gameplay, it appears that Shadows of Mordor will be an open-world game, with the ability to free-roam and pursue side-quests alongside the primary storyline. Players will be granted with a high level of customization, with a Fable-esque interaction system whereby certain actions will dictate the interactions with environment and player later on in the game.
All of these mechanics are obviously enticing, but the main feature which has caught people’s eye is the skill tree. You’ll be able to develop your character in two different directions: one that focuses on stealth, and another which provides you with more sly talents, enabling you to spread stories of your strength to decrease morale within enemy ranks. You’ll also be able to convince certain enemies to do your bidding - whether it be to gather information, or kill off one of their leaders. While Tolkien’s universe has resulted in a pretty mixed bag when it comes to quality over the years, Shadow of Mordor looks like it’s a game to keep an eye out for.
9. Tom Clancy’s The Division
Without having seen any gameplay (which is available now to watch online), you might think that the trailer for The Division was a bit… well, dull really. In fact, it sets the scene for the game quite well. Tom Clancy games have a long history, and over the years publisher Ubisoft has worked hard to weave all of the disparate titles and franchises into an overarching shared universe. Think along the lines of the Marvel Comics movies - only with more of an emphasis on terrorists, political wrangling and military exercises.
In terms of the game itself however, The Division is a gigantic open-world online multiplayer experience where you inhabit a near-future Earth that ripped apart by a viral epidemic. You’ll be able to join up with your friends and take on recovery missions for trapped officials, save people from certain death and combat criminals that are trying to crush the integral part of society that we are actually trying to uphold. Not only that, you’ll even be able to play the bad guys, should you so wish. Think of it as the Altis Life RPG mod for Arma 3 - only already integrated, and at the core of a visually-stunning game.
The gameplay trailers have shown evidence of tablet-controlled drones that can come to help other players by spotting enemies and marking them, delivering a small amount of firepower or even just blowing them to smithereens. That feature will most likely make this game a winner in the eyes of critics. You’ll even be able to play it from work if you get bored!
8. Sunset Overdrive
Bright, cheerful, colorful and just plain awesome. Sunset Overdrive is set to be one of those games you just can’t put down as you will be able to explore a vast open-world where pretty much every single surface or wire you see will be “parkour-able”.
Sunset Overdrive defies the basic third-person shooter genre and adds an extra layer of fun by blending a city-wide mutant apocalypse with a veritable array of silly and outrageous weaponry that ranges from a vinyl catapult to a roman candle minigun. With so much absurdly inviting weaponry on offer, it should be of no surprise that the game is being developed by Insomniac, the brains behind Ratchet & Clank and Resistance. However, for the first time in nearly a decade, Sunset Overdrive won’t be available on PlayStation consoles. Instead, their latest title sees them crafting a game exclusively for Microsoft’s Xbox One.
The main selling point of the game is the free-running. The developers describe the system as being “more about velocity than anything else”, meaning the quicker you go the more awesome you will look. And the fact that almost everything you see can be used to your advantage when running around means that gaining this velocity shouldn’t be difficult - even for the more motion-impaired gamers amongst you.
The trailer also shows us evidence of multiplayer interaction which should, in theory, make the experience even more enjoyable - allowing you to perform combos and eradicate a whole street-worth of mutants by combining your weapons and attacks. We can’t wait to get our hands on this game, and we’re sure you can’t wait either.
7. The Sims 4
This is a very special trailer, not only because it’s the trailer for the new upcoming Sims game, which has got to be one of the world’s most treasured franchises, but also because EA had the ingenious idea of packing the trailer with easter eggs of certain scenes, from a woman falling in love with a llama to a spaceman dancing to dubstep. Be sure to keep an eye out for some of the annotations on the video that will lead you to some of these humorous easter eggs.
It has been a long time since The Sims 3 and as per usual, EA has released countless expansions since its original release as they did with The Sims 2 and The Sims. It’s tough to up the game on what has already been a fantastic set of games but from the screenshots we’ve seen and the gameplay that has been shown, we’re fairly confident that they’ll be able to surpass their previous accomplishments.
One major change is the new emotion-based gameplay which the Sims themselves will be affected by and their actions also so should your Sim become angry or upset, they may refuse to do certain actions or if they were to interact with another Sim, they may be more brutal with their conversations. EA has also boasted a new character creation process which will allow for deeper customisation with advanced body shaping and many other detailed features.
6. Quantum Break
Apart from the protagonist in this trailer looking like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, Remedy Games and Microsoft look like they are on to a winner with the upcoming time-bending third person shooter. Not much can actually be said about Quantum Break simply because not much information has been released about it. Although one of the most prevalent upcoming features is that the progress of players in Quantum Break will actually dictate the progression of a story in an upcoming television show with the same name and the same plot.
An interesting way to spread a game’s popularity, however the genre blend of a standard shooter and a character with time-warping abilities does provide intrigue. It bears strong resemblance to the abilities that you have at your disposal in the Prince of Persia trilogy and in fact, Remedy Games has actually gone the extra mile and have employed an actual scientist lecturer who worked at CERN who taught them how to write the plot in such a way that it followed the current theoretical physics laws. Hopefully this might mean that certain sacrifices will have to be made in order to freeze time in a particular area, perhaps a black hole will spontaneously appear elsewhere in the world.
5. Mirror’s Edge 2
The Mirror’s Edge franchise, if one can even call it that, is deeply popular. Its reputation for having popularised the free-running genre in the gaming world is unparalleled and it looks like EA have plans to make it a double-whammy on the console side of things. After having released the initial trailer at E3, several hints during its showing pointed towards Mirror’s Edge 2 being a prequel to the original.
Maybe this means that the game will be more story-driven this time. As much as the free-running is nice to have in the game, it does end up being quite repetitive so some more passive gameplay could be encouraged with a larger open-world scene with a more developed storyline and some more interesting levels. Many players complained that the original was far too dry in terms of content and that it needed more sustenance. Maybe EA has listened to what the players want. The trailer certainly seems to point to a couple of new things, primarily a new setting where maybe we’ll be able to switch cities as well as some new takedown moves from Faith’s behalf.
4. The Order: 1886
Ready at Dawn and SCE Santa Monica Studio seem to have taken a break from God of War and delved into a far darker venture, based in an alternate version of London where a group of “half-breeds” - humans with distinctly animalistic traits - have begun to cause havoc and start wars against the humans. A select group of 4 knights, originally part of the Knights of the Round Table, have been sent to eradicate the problem and help end the war through the use of highly-advanced technology and weaponry.
There’s actually something rather refreshing about having a game based in industrial London (even if it is far more advanced than what history tells us), as it’s a location and genre no game studio has really delved into. A squad-based third-person shooter, it seems inevitable that many will draw comparison’s with Epic’s work on Gears of War, though Ready at Dawn is hoping that their employment of cinematic techniques - which extends not only to a cinematic grain effect but also to the game’s aspect ration - will help it to stand out.
Either way, it’s certainly shaping up to be an intriguing prospect; and with E3 only a couple of weeks away, it’s only a matter of time before we see some gameplay and learn a little more about this intriguing title.
3. Batman: Arkham Knight
One of the greatest series of games has blessed us with a new instalment in its mighty legacy. Batman: Arkham Knight will not disappoint, that’s a fact.
We know that a lot of the older Arkham mechanics will stay put such as the grapple gun, line launcher, the detective vision and the famed countering system. His cape will now allow you to fly (or glide, depends how you look at things) around the map which you can then combine with the grapnel gun to immediately change direction if need be.
One of the most prominent features however, has got to be the Batmobile. You’ll be able to summon it from wherever you are whilst you’re just strolling around or whilst you’re flying around. It will meet you wherever you happen to be. You’ll even be able to eject from the seat of the car and go straight into a full glide using the cape to do for some interesting combinations. The car itself also has abilities like being able to jump, rotate on the spot, drive through objects and fire missiles. Heck, some enemies might even run away from it upon seeing it, allowing you to just drift past casually. Should they dare to get anywhere near it though, they’ll immediately get stunned by the car’s taser defences. In any case, it will be a fantastic new addition to the game, certainly enriching the experience for the player.
2. Destiny
Your eyes do not deceive you. That’s Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad in one of the opening shots to Bungie’s upcoming game.
Destiny looks to be a true blockbuster when it comes out September of this year, and we’ve got quite a lot of information on it already. Not only have the developers insisted that the game will be constantly changing, it will also feature large MMO elements in terms of sharing your missions and worlds with other players, effectively creating a morphed single and multiplayer experience.
However it won’t quite be an MMO: you won’t sit there in a location being surrounded by hundreds of other players. On-the-fly matchmaking will see you spawning near other players in your vicinity.
Bungie hasn’t hesitated in making the most of next-generation console capabilities too, with dynamic lighting, global illumination, detailed bump-mapping and more; so we’ll be able to enjoy massive landscapes, extensive graphical detail whilst being able to shoot the crap out of a horde of oncoming enemies. Although the game isn’t planned for a PC release, the next-gen consoles should be able to hold up against the performance-hog that this game is almost certain to be. The older consoles, however, may take a serious hit, and textures may have to be downsized to compensate.
1. Halo 5
Halo 5 is going to be the latest addition in what is one of the most highly-acclaimed, profitable and popular franchises the entertainment industry has ever seen. With over 50 million copies bought worldwide from the series equating to a market value of over $3 billion, and that was in 2012. So of course, Microsoft without hesitation have commissioned another instalment. But, there are only three things we know about the upcoming sequel.
Master Chief will remain as the main character and main protagonist of the storyline, no doubt where we’ll have to save millions of people whose fate rests in the palm of our hands. John never seems to get a break, especially when he’s being taunted by a gigantic Promethean ship, most likely controlled by the legendary Forerunners. Even though they were made extinct in Halo 4, the trailer tells us that there might just be a few of them left dotted around the galaxy. This could possibly be the story for Halo 5 in which the Forerunners return as the antagonists.
So we’ve got our protagonist, and our antagonist. There’s still one person missing however. Sadly, the plot (spoiler alert!) in Halo 4 dictates that Cortana’s return is just simply impossible. However, the data chip which Masterchief clutches in the trailer could contain what remains of her AI files that could maybe, just maybe, help him to fight the good fight in Halo 5, the next blockbuster in a franchise of true masterpieces.
Oliver McQuitty
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