The Talos Principle 2 was the long awaited sequel to an indie puzzle classic. As a huge fan of the original, it was incredibly important to me that we gave the reveal of its return the fan fare it deserved.
As we dived into the game world that the developers had been creating for the past several years, we found so much unexpected beauty. Even though it wasn’t complete, it was easy to see that the environments they we were creating were going to be stunning. This is when we posed the question - what if we shot a gorgeous sci-fi movie in their game, and then used these beauty shots as a basis for a reveal trailer?
To accomplish this, we wanted it to feel as authentic as possible, so we mimicked the traditional film making process as much and as often as we could.
Just as if we were shooting a movie, we jumped into the engine and went location scouting around the various environments, identifying places and potential camera angles for our shots.
Next was lighting. Just like on set, we placed lights and haze to add atmospherics - making sure to replicate traditional lighting techniques where possible to hit that awe-inspiring sci-fi look.
Then it was time for the art department to come in. We took objects that already existed in the game, and introduced some of our own to bring life to the scene, finishing areas that weren’t ready yet by taking these environments with props, foliage and textures, to the level that we had imagined them being all along.
Cameras Then it was time to tweak our cameras, we didn’t want to use any camera moves that were only possible because we were in a realtime environment and so limited ourselves to straight dolly tracks, slow drone-movements and minimal crane-shots - this gave it an authentic feel when it all came together.
Shortlisted
Nominated
Nominated
After the success of the reveal trailer, Devolver Digital commissioned us to create an entirely new trailer for their launch using the same techniques. This time we added in even more animation and world building to create the trailer below