We were tasked with creating the trailer from concept to completion. To do this, we had to take care of all gameplay capture, editing, VO, motion graphics, VFX, and overall production polish.

We started the project with our iterative process once again, discovering the right tone and working to construct a trailer that would have the strongest impact. We worked closely with Ironwood's team to nail the right feel and balance of gameplay, world building, and more.

One of the major additions to this trailer was the in-game TV and narrator, which was used as the vessel to carry the trailer through its various paces. Using the ARDA logo from Ironwood, we had to take care of the motion, design, VFX, and overall graphic style of the retro TV screen, including animating the effect of the TV and motion tracking it on to the 3D model in the game.

The effect of the footage on the TV took a considerable amount of work, finding the right balance of projector-based decay and 1950s recording technology, and combining it with the look of a VHS recording on top. Various iterations of the style were developed internally, until we landed on what you see in the trailer. Ironwood was so happy with the end result that we created stand-alone pieces using the technique and style for other marketing beats.

Working with their narrative team, the writing and approach of the VO was established over time, where we combined and iterated our capture process to showcase the various elements of the game in a unique and interesting way. All capture was done in real-time with no pre-scripted camera movements.

Audio was another really important facet of the production. With the Announcement Trailer, many of the in-game sounds were not finished or usable, so we had to create a substantial amount of additional audio to supplement the game. With this trailer, there was a lot more audio done from the game that we could use. We pulled a majority of the audio for the trailer from the game separately, and combined it with a variety of additional SFX work we've performed to help amplify the sound bed. We finalized it all by mixing everything together.

Music was another key asset of the trailer. We spent a considerable amount of time going through a number of music tracks and styles to find the right tone and feel that worked for Ironwood. Landing on both tracks used in the trailer, we set the stage and emotion of each section depending on what music piece we used.

We were excited to finally release to the world this passion project from an incredibly talented team that spent years crafting this game.