A game trailer has one job: make someone want to play. Most indie trailers fail at it in the first five seconds, for reasons that are entirely fixable.
Cut the Logo
Nobody has heard of your studio. A three-second logo animation at the front spends your most valuable moment on the least interesting content.
Open on gameplay. Immediately.
Lead With the Hook, Not the Setup
Most trailers open with atmosphere — a slow pan across an empty environment, a moody title card. That is establishing a world nobody has agreed to care about yet.
Start with the thing that makes your game different. If your hook is a mechanic, show the mechanic. If it is the art, show the most striking frame you have.
Show the Game Being Played
Cinematics and cutscenes tell players nothing about what they will actually do. Worse, experienced players read a cinematic-heavy trailer as hiding the gameplay.
Real gameplay with real UI is more convincing than a beautiful pre-rendered sequence.
Length and Pacing
60 to 90 seconds. Shorter is usually better, and almost nothing needs two minutes.
Cut faster than feels comfortable. Every shot should either show something new or escalate something established — if a shot does neither, remove it.
Sound Is Half of It
Music choice does an enormous amount of work in setting tone, and impact sounds make action read as weighty. A trailer with good audio and mediocre footage outperforms the reverse.
Watch yours muted. If it still communicates the game, the visuals are working. Then watch it with sound and check that the audio is adding rather than filling silence.
End With One Action
Wishlist on Steam. That is it. Not your Discord, your Twitter, your Kickstarter and your newsletter — one clear action people can take while they still feel something.
The Test That Catches Everything
Show the first five seconds to someone and stop. Ask what the game is.
If they cannot answer, the opening is wrong — and since most viewers never get past that point, the rest of the trailer does not matter.
More on presentation in our Steam page guide.
