The 10 Most Misleading Video Game Trailers

The most iconic and memorable misleading trailers and commercials in video game history.

January 5, 2012

Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Lead Slide

It's no fun to expect a certain thing and get something else entirely, especially when it comes to video games – expensive, hotly anticipated video games.

Sometimes trailers and commercials lead our minds in one direction, whether it's an intentional move to keep secrets at bay, or a deliberate attempt to sell us on something that's better than what we're actually buying. It's not always a bad thing, but those memories tend to stick around.

Here are 10 of the most iconic and memorable misleading game trailers and commercials, which spin half-truths and outright lies at a startlingly impressive rate.

10. Brutal Legend

Watch Now

Double Fine's tale of a heavy metal roadie transported into a world inspired by iconic album covers seems to boast one of the surest visions of any game this generation, but Brutal Legend faced an unexpected identity crisis.

Advertised as a combat-centric action game – even the awesome playable demo confirmed that assumption – the game takes an odd twist towards real-time strategy as the campaign progresses, which turned off a lot of players and wasn't a well-known fact prior to release. If you didn't know it had RTS elements, could you possibly tell from this trailer? Probably not.

9. Halo 3

Watch Now

The "Believe" commercial for Halo 3 is a beautifully constructed ode to the series' beloved sci-fi universe, and certainly one of the shining examples of how games can be stirringly sold to a mainstream audience.

That said, the ad – which stars physical miniatures instead of in-game footage – took flak from some fans for hinting at massive, large-scale battles between the humans and Covenant, while the actual game never really dug into that department, instead focusing on more intimate skirmishes. Call it nitpicking, but… actually, it is just nitpicking.

8. Assassin's Creed

Watch Now

Even from the start, trailers for Assassin's Creed featured odd digital artifacts that didn't quite fit in, but from all we could see, the game was a historical take on the open-world genre. And this fantastic trailer drummed up early enthusiasm for the series opener, spotlighted its many innovations like the free running, crowd movement, and hidden blade mechanics.

But one thing it conveniently forgets to mention? Ah, right, the fact that the entire game takes place within the DNA-embedded memories of a near-future descendant of the playable hero, who is strapped to a sleek machine called the Animus. It made for a nice mystery, at least.

7. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play

Watch Now

Before Woods' private life became very public, one of his stranger controversies involved this seemingly innocuous trailer, which seems to show him playing the Wii version of his 2008 golfing sim – but that's clearly not Wii footage playing behind him.

It's actually from the Xbox 360 version of the game. One complaint from a UK viewer triggered an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority over there, which concluded that the ad was misleading and banned it from the airwaves.

6. Catherine

Watch Now

The language barrier here doesn't add any clarity to the situation, but from watching this initial trailer, would you assume the core play experience in Catherine centers on the frantic climbing of vertical blocks?

Catherine is an odd bird of a game; one that pairs relationship drama and supernatural shenanigans with puzzle-solving elements, but from the looks of this and other trailers, it's hard to see anything but a graphic adventure with dating elements. Even the shorter English trailer keeps the real meat of the gameplay out of the picture.

5. Final Fantasy VII

Watch Now

Way back in 1997, Final Fantasy VII ushered in a new era for the series: one in which the highly stylized, cinematic cut-scenes looked so dramatically better than the actual game that they could be used almost exclusively to promote its release.

The divide was never as obvious as in this first PSone entry, and while the CG shots look simplistic now, they were absolutely mind-blowing back in the day – and the transition to jagged, chunky in-game characters was jarring, to say the least.

But both the game and CG clips were utterly fantastic, so most RPG fans forgave the obvious misdirection.

4. Call of Duty 2

Watch Now

Call of Duty 2's pre-rendered commercial is one of the most convincing deceptive ads we've ever seen, and truth be told, the game was one of the most stunning titles released to date when it shipped in 2005.

Still, there's a clear disconnect between this CG clip, with its cartoonishly smooth movements and remarkable detail, and the actual in-game footage, enough so that this commercial (and another for PS2/Xbox spin-off Call of Duty: Big Red One) was banned in the UK for misleading viewers about the visual quality of the actual experience.

3. Killzone 2

Watch Now

Sony showed this now-infamous trailer back at E3 in 2005, where the company claimed it was PlayStation 3 gameplay footage, but journalists and fans alike couldn't help but wonder whether the wickedly polished and distinct character animations were really true examples of in-game action.

The truth came out later: it was target video footage based on expected PS3 specs, not anything close to playable. Killzone 2 won over a lot of fans and looked damn fine when it launched in 2009, but even today's shooters don't flow nearly as well as this target clip.

2. Dead Island

Watch Now

Most folks forgot about Dead Island following its original 2007 reveal, but following this equally brutal and touching teaser earlier this year, the game was on the tip of everyone's tongue.

This slow motion, backwards-spooling, piano-driven clip immediately persuaded most viewers that it'd be the zombie game to finally break free of the hack-and-slash genre confines and really tell an emotional, enveloping tale.

What ultimately launched was notable more for its bugs and glitches than any tugged heartstrings, though the action experience did win over some folks. Still, it hardly resembled this shocking tease.

1. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Watch Now

Series creator Hideo Kojima pulled a pretty amazing trick on fans awaiting one of the most anticipated games of all time. Based on the initial trailers, you'd have no idea that most of the game is experienced as a character other than Solid Snake – especially since this trailer and other show Snake in a variety of situations.

But the footage was mocked up to perpetrate a lie, and most of the actual scenarios you see are experienced as new character, Raiden. It's perhaps the best-kept secret by any hugely notable game release that we can recall, and one example in which it's obvious the developer wanted to fool players via misdirection. It worked, though, and the game still proved hugely popular and totally amazing. Luckily, though, every other developer isn't following Kojima's lead.