If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to talk about the new Gran Turismo 7 trailer for a second.
The games industry has become so dependent on hype that it’s weird when a publisher leans away from established trends.
We all know the Video Game Trailer Template by now. BOOM-thwack drum tracks, a licensed pop song about power, cunning or how we’re innately better than some unseen opposition. Splash cards intercut on the beat that read something like “BECOME.” “A.” “LEGEND.” in style-guide approved font. Look, here’s a perfect example:
Maybe one more, just to drive the point home:
Sony’s trailers for Gran Turismo 7 aren’t doing any of that. PlayStation has dropped several trailers for GT7 and all of them adhere to the same simple rule: let the game speak for itself. Here’s the Daytona International Speedway gameplay trailer Sony released this morning:
No cuts. No edits. No text overlays. No voiceovers. No one-liners.
Blessed silence. It’s just the viewer and the rattling of the car, the screaming of the tyres, and the roar of the engine.
At Kotaku, we are typically suspicious of marketing as a whole. Trailers are only made to sell games and make money. Most of them annoy the shit out of me, actively turning me off the product. But this? This I can abide.
Trailers like this give me everything I need. I can see the visuals, the lighting. I can get a sense of the HUD and its scale (here, it’s all on the wheel). The sense of speed and momentum in the sim. The quality of the track recreation. Even got a little glimpse of how the AI behaves. Every Gran Turismo 7 trailer meaningfully tells me about the game.
More of this, please.
Gran Turismo 7 launches March 5, 2022 for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
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