Calling Dead Island CGI trailer misleading is ridiculous, says Deep Silver

Deep Silver has defended the CGI trailer which catapulted zombie survival title Dead Island to worldwide success, telling VideoGamer.com that labelling the marketing tool as misleading would be "ridiculous".

"We did many gameplay trailers with in-game footage before the release, so labelling the CGI misleading would be ridiculous," said Deep Silver's creative director Guido Eickmeyer. "We never pretended to be something different.

[wallis]

They're kinda missing the point. We weren't upset the trailer was misleading, we were upset that the trailer was BETTER. Next time take the hint and follow some of the narrative conventions laid out in your bloody marketing because whoever wrote that deserves a bigger cut of the profits than the literary genius who scribed such wonderful characters as white douche, black douche, black douche with boobs, asian douche with boobs.

I actually liked the game but these guys need to shut up and realize we don't owe them crap and next time they should just hang their heads in shame when a 2 minute trailer achieves more emotional resonance than their entire game.

[Tonester925]

That was really the best trailer I've seen in a while. It made me want to buy the game even more. (I love zombie games)

But when I played the game I didn't care about the people I was saving and the story wasn't very great.

I was hoping for story changing missions.

[WrAiTh Sp3cTr3]

Didn't the trailer come out like almost a year before the game launched? I remember watching a 2 hour live game play video on youtube and that was a few months before the game released. My point is, if you couldn't tell that the game wasn't going to be like the trailer, before you bought the game then...fail on your part, lol.

[Root]

I think the main problem was the trailer made it seem serious and like a proper open world survival Zombie game.

In the end it was light hearted, had no survival elements and didn't take it's self serious which was kind of off putting in my opinion

[showtimefolks]

IMO the trailer atleast should show what the game is about, dead island trailers are so emotional and all but the game itself is very Arcady and the story in the 1st one was pretty MEH.

What saved the 1st dead island game was its gameplay which was a lot of fun.

[Timesplitter14]

I'll go ahead and voice my -probably unpopular- opinion :

The same thing will happen to Cyberpunk 2077

[GillHarrison]

The Witcher is a fantastic RPG series, no reason to see why CD Projekt Red's next title wouldn't be any good.

[richierich]

Trailer > Game

[Ezz2013]

yeah that trailer trolled me big time

i told my self when i saw it ... OMG the best zombie game is coming

and then i saw he gameplay
i almost thought it's different game

[pandehz]

The trailer was misleading.

To put it simply ppl may or may not have been expecting the game to be like the trailer but the game was faaaaar from it.

Any info you put out about the game, reflecting its personality, art work etc says that the game is going to be like that or why show it.

IF they did not intend to make the game like the trailer then they should have released it as a short film with its own title called 'How I died in slow mo'

Anything game related is saying something about the game. Of course ppl who watched the trailer did come away with it thinking theres going to be zombies, thats obvious. Ppl expected the soul that was in that trailer and Deep Silver delivered the exact opposite.

Exact reason I hate cgi trailers etc that are far from the game. Some of them are good which shows a side of the story or the feel etc. For eg the Mass Effect 3 cgi trailers were fantastic and stuck to the story.

Dead Island? NOT

[xXBlondieVanHarlowXx]

Let me get this straight, (and don't flip out if i'm wrong) but did people assume the game was about hiding and dying inside a hotel by way of zombies? I took the video as just THAT, a really awesome cinematic video to promote their game. Saw the gameplay vids after that, i quckly knew it was a fps zombie apocalypse game from the get-go and loved it (Played through it twice, once in 4-player co-op). I never assumed i'd be playing a 4 minute game backwards.

Sure you can argue it wasn't as emotional, but there was panic. I remember a man crying on a roof next to a dead woman saying something along the lines of "this was suppose to be our honeymoon". The man on his knees with a gun by his side. Sure it wasn't as "emotional" but you CAN'T say they didn't have similar moments like the one in the trailer occurring throughout the game.

[pandehz]

''but you CAN'T say they didn't have similar moments like the one in the trailer occurring throughout the game''

LMFAO ok anyone who has played Dead Island knows theres nothing similar between the trailer and the game besides zombies and the location. The trailer was well narrated, powerful and memorable. The game was well uhmmm

@axerated below

Well put.

seeing as both the cgi trailers have implied an emotionally intense experience in which you have other characters that you are invested in heartbreakingly killed in front of you, whilst the actual game had a wise cracking douche for a protagonist (whichever one you picked) and bland side characters and just generally no heart.

@Tuxedo Moon below

You nailed it. Exactly what Dead ISland is

It was an extremely bland and safe game. I say safe because it had nothing new or completely unique that set it apart from being a standard zombie game. The zombies were all generic, NO ZOMBIE ANIMALS ON A FREAKING ZOMBIE INFESTED ISLAND, no real day and night system, no CPU players if you're soloing the game (like Left4Dead), Blueprints required to make a weapon (unlike dead rising), The over all story was ridiculously boring, FETCH QUESTS, The characters were so dull, and that final boss...Really? A slightly bigger thug?

[gamernova]

I loved the trailer and I loved the game. :)

[Godmars290]

Gamers don't want the post zombie apocalypse or killing rooms, but the "mid" apocalypse. where you're fighting to survive trying to figure things out while everything is falling apart. NPCs whom you have to protect, need their support, or have to fight.

[sitharrefus]

The trailer was good and not misleading, if it was misleading then i can safely say that the Wii U ZombiU Cinematic Trailer is also misleading.... Which i think its not.

[axerated]

Well it's obviously not ridiculous, seeing as both the cgi trailers have implied an emotionally intense experience in which you have other characters that you are invested in heartbreakingly killed in front of you, whilst the actual game had a wise cracking douche for a protagonist (whichever one you picked) and bland side characters and just generally no heart. I enjoyed the first game, but it could/should have been so much more. Here's hoping riptide lives up to what we want from the series so it can flourish

[TuxedoMoon]

If it wasn't fr that "Emotional" trailer, this franchise/game would've never taken off. Before that CG trailer, it was an under the radar game, but that misleading ad coxed people into buying the game expecting something that was only a small mention in the over all game.

I played through the game, somewhat coxed myself after seeing the trailer and absolutely hated it (played it solo). It was an extremely bland and safe game. I say safe because it had nothing new or completely unique that set it apart from being a standard zombie game. The zombies were all generic, NO ZOMBIE ANIMALS ON A FREAKING ZOMBIE INFESTED ISLAND, no real day and night system, no CPU players if you're soloing the game (like Left4Dead), Blueprints required to make a weapon (unlike dead rising), The over all story was ridiculously boring, FETCH QUESTS, The characters were so dull, and that final boss...Really? A slightly bigger thug?

Sorry for that rant. To its credit the environment looked nice. The created weapons were kinda cool. My advice it to not play the game solo or go in for the story. You'll be disappointed, especially if you recently came off from playing L4d or something better.

[MysticStrummer]

As someone who loved that trailer and found the game to be the biggest letdown of this gen, next to Brink, I'd say yeah the trailer was very misleading.