Video game trailers are exciting things to watch. Whenever one comes out for a game that I’m interested in, I hop on it immediately and soak it in. The best ones stick with me for years and make me watch them over and over until the replay button is begging me to stop. There are a couple things that make a trailer an amazing one for me. For some trailers, it’s because of the story that the trailer tells, whereas for others it’s the music that’s used in it. Other key pieces are the gameplay that’s shown, or the way that all elements of the trailer coalesce into a beautiful whole. Sometimes a trailer is amazing purely because of the hype behind it.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – E3 Trailer

Let’s start with what I would argue is one of the best game trailers period. The E3 trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is an amazing one, and it’s without a doubt the best trailer for an Assassin’s Creed game. It tells us a story that we’re invested in from the moment it starts without a single line of dialogue from any characters. Seeing our man Ezio beaten and battered with his hidden blade broken makes us wonder what happened to him. We then watch him go on a journey to the compound that original leading man Altair came from, only to get there and then have to fight an army of Templars by himself.

Sure it’s a cinematic trailer with no gameplay, but it’s filled with a number of badass moments that are representative of actual gameplay. And I can’t talk about what makes this trailer so great without talking about the song that plays in it. “Iron” by Woodkid backs this trailer to great effect. The song is the only source of audio for the entire trailer and it’s the perfect song for the trailer. The lyrics align with what’s happening on screen and the instrumental sets the tone nicely.

DC Universe Online – 2010 Cinematic Trailer

I’m a big fan of superheroes, but I’m not really an MMO guy. That being said, I never would’ve given DC Universe Online the time of day if it wasn’t for this trailer. It’s another cinematic trailer that doesn’t show any gameplay at all, but it tells a story that sets up the premise of the game, and it does it in epic fashion. Seeing the many heroes and villains of the DC Universe go to blows with each other in fights to the death is something that never gets old, but the fact that one by one the heroes lose and die makes this trailer so shocking. It’s definitely not something I expected to happen when I first watched it, and it still hurts watching it today. The fact that it’s able to get you invested in the events that are happening and make you feel emotional about the losses in such a short amount of time is something that a great trailer does, and this trailer does it in spades.

Super Mario Odyssey – E3 2017 Trailer

After watching that trailer, I’m willing to bet you went and replayed it again at least one more time before continuing to read this post. The E3 2017 trailer for Super Mario Odyssey is one of my favorite trailers to watch because it’s just so damn jolly and fun. It shows off the many different worlds you can visit in the game, while also introducing the main gameplay hook of taking over other objects and characters in the world in such an easy to understand way and showing just how fun it’ll be to do. Combine that with the song “Jump Up, Superstar!” that was made for the game and how the trailer is synced up with the song, and what you get is one of my favorite trailers in the past couple years, and what I feel is a shining example of how to show off your game in a real quick trailer.

Final Fantasy XIII – Launch Trailer

I’ve never played Final Fantasy XIII, so I have no stake in the witch hunt against the game. Regardless, I think that this trailer for the game is just fantastic. It jumps around a lot in terms of story beats and shows a lot of cool gameplay aspects, all while Leona Lewis’ “My Hands” plays behind it all. For me, that song is what makes this trailer so damn good. Leona’s voice sounds beautiful, so combining it with some well placed and chosen scenes from the game creates something lovely. The final minute of the trailer (starting at 3:30) and the way the music reaches its climax while the trailer gets even more crazy and hectic is something that I can never get enough of. I want to play this game so badly because of this trailer. Please re-release the Lightning trilogy Square!

Watch Dogs 2 – Hack Everything Trailer

The original Watch Dogs caught flack for a number of reasons when it first came out. It was super gritty and serious, lacked any sense of the word fun in regards to its tone, and you weren’t able to hack as many things as you would’ve liked to. But then Watch Dogs 2 came around and completely flipped the script on all of that, and the game was all the better for it. The “Hack Everything” trailer for the game is emblematic of all of that. It’s light and fun thanks to a killer song choice from Run The Jewels, and some very slick editing that allows us to see just how many things you can hack in the world and how they all intersect with one another. I sincerely hope that whoever edited this trailer got a nice raise because they did a damn good job. It raised my excitement for the game by a lot and I know that wouldn’t have happened if this trailer wasn’t as good as it was.

Prey 2 – Cinematic Trailer

There are a couple games that I wish were never cancelled and Prey 2 is one of them. The cinematic trailer for the game showed off a really cool and imaginative alien world where you played as a human that’s also a bounty hunter. Johnny Cash’s “Rusty Cage” is the right song to use as well because it helps convey the rugged cowboy/western tone that the game was clearly going for. It’s something that we haven’t gotten in games and I still believe that the game could’ve lived up to the potential laid out by this great trailer.

Star Wars: The Old Republic – “Deceived” Trailer

Whenever I think about the best video game trailers, this trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the first to come to mind. When Bioware dropped the “Deceived” trailer, it was the coolest Star Wars thing I had ever seen and I wanted a full movie to be made out of it. I’m not alone in feeling that way because this trailer took fans by storm. Seeing a small group of villains led by a Sith walk into the Jedi temple on their own is badass and something that I hadn’t seen before. But what’s even more awesome is when a troop carrier smashes into the temple and opens its doors to reveal dozens of Sith warriors brandishing their lightsabers. The battle against the Jedi that follows is nothing short of epic, ending in tragedy as the planet Coruscant is under siege by the Sith.

Kingdom Hearts III – Orchestra Trailer

The Kingdom Hearts franchise generally does a pretty good job with its trailers, through a great mix of gameplay scenes, story beats, and music. The Orchestra trailer for Kingdom Hearts III does it the best of any trailer that the series has put out. In the lead up to this trailer’s release we had only been given a few trailers that were pretty cool, but we hadn’t seen the game in years and had barely gotten any substantial information about the game. The first gameplay reveal was two years prior in 2015, but this one was the game’s true coming out party and was far more representative of what the final game was going to look and play like.

Kicking off with the an explosive score as Sora dives from high in the skies of Olympus with the entire world visible under him was a mind-blowing reveal and immediately set the tone for the rest of the trailer. We got to see a number of different gameplay elements in action and some teases of the game’s story that had us fans frothing at the mouth for more info. Thankfully this was just the start of a steady feed of information for the long awaited game, and what a start it was.

Halo 3 – Announcement Trailer

Rounding out the list is the announcement trailer for Halo 3. Let me lay out some context for those that may not remember. When the Xbox 360 launched in 2005, the Halo franchise was on top of the world. Halo 2 had come out the previous year and ended on a giant cliffhanger that had fans dying for the sequel to come out. Jump ahead to E3 2006 and the hype was real. You could practically taste it. Once the trailer started with that iconic piano note, everyone knew what they were about to get.

The slow build up to the reveal of Master Chief in all the Xbox 360’s glory was perfectly paced with the music and the ominous lines that Cortana delivers. Following that, the Halo theme song kicks into full gear as the Covenant army comes into view and the scope of the game is finally revealed. The trailer is practically perfect because it takes its time to give us what we want, teases the story of the actual game, and is purely a trailer that feeds off the hype of the fans. We were ready to finish the fight, and we had just gotten out first glimpse at the coming battle.

Those are some of my favorite game trailers, but what are yours? Are some of these your favorites as well or do you feel differently about them? Let me know in the comments below!