How To Fix The Forspoken Trailer

Listen, I don’t want to shit on the Forspoken trailer any more than we all already have. Someone worked hard on it. And for all we know, became a perfectly capable writer with notes like “Give the dialogue more pop,” “Make it sound like Gen-Z is speaking,” and “I’m in this position because creativity didn’t.” train, so I’m going to ruin everything I touch.” Take it from someone who’s written for both TV and games: the end result isn’t always what you envisioned.

Still, the Forspoken trailer is awful. And it’s not just awful because the narration sounds like a dialogue style that’s fallen out of favor with fans who once — let’s face it — treated the same type of dialogue as if it had been delivered by angelic hands. I know we all reconstruct our fondness of always hating something made by a later-out abuser, but let’s not pretend that this style didn’t spawn a whole cottage industry of novelty shirts over two decades. It’s up to many of us. I don’t because I’ve always hated it. Wink.

Also Read: Forspoken’s Trailer Shows How Marvel Ruined Modern Media

The reason the trailer is awful – and that style has gotten extremely grating – is because not every character on this goddamn planet has to be self-centered.

For some reason video games love selfish jokes. I feel like half the tutorials in games now feature a guy saying something like, “Press A to jump – WHICH IS ALSO AN A KEY, LOL!” And while I’m thinking that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is leaps and bounds above the other Borderlands games, this series is absolutely packed with characters who seem to explode when they don’t realize how crazy everything is. The logic is, well, when the world is crazy, it’s fun for the audience when everyone realizes how crazy the world is!

It can be. Occasionally.

Because sometimes people point out that things are weird. They just don’t do it in every sentence. Nobody starts their day with “Okay. Let me get this straight: I make toast. This is warm bread. In a machine that heats the bread? And it’s called a toaster? That’s convenient! Um… please check!” And if someone made you a breakfast you’ve never seen before, you’d probably feign confused politeness rather than say, “Um… strawberries in cottage cheese? I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT!” Unless you’re an asshole.

Here’s an obvious example: think about stoner characters in the media because they’re usually the main culprits of this stupid shit. In real life, people might say, “I think I got too high,” but that’s not all they say all the time. Stoners are used to weed. It’s part of their normal routine, so it’s commonplace for them. They don’t just talk weed exclusively or say, “Look at the colors, man!” It’s annoying because it flattens their characterization into a set of well-worn clichés.

Sure, narrators can be unreliable. Or they can be “aware” of the story – as in The Princess Bride. But when you’re a character in a story, you usually don’t know you’re in a story. And if you’re a character in a story that’s just been magically thrown into a horrific, totally alien world, don’t keep calm. In fact, realistically, you do one or more of three things: panic and ask for help, doubt what’s happening, or assert yourself and pretend you know what you’re doing while failing badly at it.

Essentially, “Oh my god, please help me man. Please. I’m really scared right now.”

When you’re lost in a world, the jokes should come from the reality of the situation itself. That’s why skits and comedy movies are more fun when the characters believe what’s happening is real. If you watch famous skits like “Are We the Baddies?” or “More Cowbell”, both involve situations where everyone is there processing what they believe to be real circumstances. Neither character brings it to a halt and says, “THIS JUST HAPPENED!”

As for why it’s egregious in the Forspoken trailer, it’s because we assume this woman’s life is in danger. So she would probably be scared. Or overwhelmed that she has superpowers. Or confused and reluctant. If you found your normal ass suddenly fighting a dragon with fireballs, your emotions and adrenaline would go through the freaking roof. They wouldn’t calmly shoot Zinger. And when a character absolutely needs to spawn a zinger, the best way to make it fun is to undercut that zinger with a failure.

There are a few ways to fix the Forspoken trailer. First, you could simply show footage of a game and how it’s played. Classic video game trailer. Add epic music and some title cards like “An adventure like never before!” and you’ll be home in time for dinner. They would be bragging about the game without editing the existence of the game itself.

Second, you could swing at the fences and try to have the character actually react to the world as if the events were actually happening. If she’s new here, she should say she’s scared. “Oh my god you gotta help me” is a much funnier way to start a trailer about a woman who teleported to another realm than “Let me get something straight!” It should melt you. “I’ll do that now!” is a weird way to react to suddenly having superpowers. You’d still be scared if you could launch fireballs – especially if you didn’t know why or how.

Of course, the reason there are so many self-referential characters in video games is because they’re easier to write. It’s easier to write a robot commenting on HOW WEIRD THESE SUPER BIG GUNS ARE! to write as a robot who sees his world as normal but wishes it were different. Yes, characters can say funny things when they’re surprised, but that’s because it’s a break from the reality they believe in, rather than just pretending that every moment of their existence is cynically pointing out things in front of them would have.

Games don’t need every character to commentate the game. Not everyone has to be the funny one. People joke in real life, but they don’t do it every moment — and those who do are annoying. Trust me: I was that annoying person. so you have

We know game worlds are absurd – that’s why we usually play them. None of us actually live in a generic JRPG world (unfortunately) – but we don’t need to be told they’re crazy and weird, either. If you want a commentary track, add a narrator like in The Stanley Parable, who somehow establishes himself as off-world. Portal’s GLaDOS might seem like a counter-example, but even in her reality, she intentionally fucks with the protagonist to achieve her character goals.

Want to avoid trailers like Forspoken? Respect your audience enough to have characters who believe in the world they are in. Heck, even if these characters suddenly appeared in an alien world, the alien world would probably feel real even to them, and that’s where their emotional comedy should come from. Make the characters panic. Let them ask for help. Leave them shaking after a fight, not quite clear what happened. Jokes can come from all of this.

In short, they should have emotions beyond “UH, I think I get that.”

Next: Games need to stop being scared of the word “transgender.”