Yes it’s the new trend of the trailers. I think they improved very much since the release of Age of Mythology Retold.
They remove the annoying X Box game logo and jingle
Viewing this logo and hearing this annoying jingle hurt me, it’s better to directly see the trailer.
AoE2
For AoE2 this trend start since Chronicles battle for Greece. Mixing cut-scene with ingame video is good. And those cutscene of Chronicles are better than AoE2 but because of the black and white cutscene of the original game we must following this black and white scheme. The three Kingdom improved this scheme wit a little touch of color, the one of the three main faction + yellow for the yellow turban and orange for the fire. In the future if they release campaigns in China they can copy this style of cutscene.
The two last medieval DLC (TLC and TVS) have an original music and a we heard every of the main campaign protagonists.
Moving away from the traditional music of the game is good for the trailers, this bring more immersion.
Maybe ingame more immersive music will be good because the civilization’s themes are good but when they end it’s the traditional music of the game not always fitting the campaign/civilization what we are playing.
AoE3
In this game we see the usual ingame footage good but the problem it’s apart of the music they are mute because there is no new campaign. Maybe if they put some voice of the historical battle characters but one of the main problem of this game is the lack of new campaigns.
AoE4
The Sultans Ascend is average because they are no voiceline, one of the problem is that this campaign span for more than a century with various characters. Maybe if they put a citation of Saladin saying something.
Knights of Cross and Rose have a good trailer because they put voice of the characters of the historical battles.
Dynasties of the East show the new crucible game-mode and the new civilization, good but the problem is they are mute because of the lack of campaigns (and campaign’s characters)
Yue Fei’s Legacy show various character who say something, with campaign cutscene. When we see this we now this DLC will relate the story of Yue Fei, also this is the most AoE2 like campaign of AoE4 (short time-span of 13 years with various historical character). This is the second best AoE4 trailer, second just because the developer make another better : Raiders of the North
Raiders of the North. Just WOW. We start with a viking axe in the flames, then viking longship on the sea with viking voice behind the narrator one. Then the traditional ingame footage. The trailer end with a clash between a viking berserker and a scottish gallowglass and then the DLC cover end the trailer with bagpipes sound. And along all the trailer the narrator voice keep us blew away from the video. Awesome ! We know there will be no campaign in this DLC but even without campaign character the narrator presence is very well done.
AoM
The model of trailers is good in this game, because the game itself is beautiful. Part of it is ingame footage with footage taken from the campaign with the voiceline of the campaign protagonists. Also this game come always with a campaign by DLC so putting part of this campaign in trailers is a natural way.
Conclusion
To make a good trailer for an Age of Empires game it’s mandatory to :
- Remove once for all the XBox logo and jingle (Cut the annoying things who broke the immersion)
- Show ingame footage
- Never put a trailer without narrator/character voiceline (never make mute trailers again because AoE is here to talk about history, someone must relate a story to us)
- Show the DLC cover at the end of the trailer
- Move away from the ingame theme with immersive music for the trailers (viking themed music for viking themed DLC is good, etc)
