Today's the 5 year anniv of one of my fav social campaigns I've ever worked on.

Let’s talk about Dying Highlights, our insanely ridiculous 16-part content series for the 2015 game Dying Light.

THREAD:

In 2011, game developer Techland released Dead Island, their first zombie game.

This was the reveal trailer. It’s wildly considered one of the best game trailers of all-time.

(Slight trigger warning)

Dead Island’s trailer was a huge hit, going viral instantly.

Problem: the final game didn’t really pay it off. Nowhere close to as emotional or narrative driven.

Here's the top 2 YouTube comments.

Skip ahead to 2013. My old agency won the chance to work on Techland's new game, Dying Light.

A new IP, but another zombie game, when fans had a bit of mistrust.

Lucky for the world: Techland built a hell of a game this time. Our job was to turn sentiment + build a new brand.

Dying Light's campaign began with a big CG reveal piece again, still a staple of game rollouts.

We knew gameplay was what people were waiting for, tho.

This was a time when gamers stopped trusting game marketing. So many trailers & images were overly polished & not representative of actual gameplay.

That became our cultural insight: gamers don't trust marketing (broad, but wait for the payoff).

When we were brainstorming, my CD partner & I played early builds of the game.

Even in its alpha build, it was a total blast. Parkour, zombies, cool weapons - we couldn’t get enough.

We wanted to message just that.
That even before the game was done, it was great fun.

Our pitch: 16 mini-trailers of raw, unedited gameplay, where we'd actively tell players they were getting a glimpse at early game play.

Each piece would have game, seasonal, and cultural influences to give purpose to the content.

Piece #1: a weapon reveal on MLB opening night.

(I still die laughing at that video. Watch with sound on)

Here was our copy approach:

- NEW GAMEPLAY in all caps.
It's what gamers want most.
- List the feature we were showing
- Subtly mention the seasonal tie
(in this case, baseball!)

Straightforward with a hint of fun.

Our content formula became a mix:
- Game Pillar
- Community Question
- Seasonal Tie or Cultural Tie

Needed 2/3 to have a shot at mass shareability.

Game Pillar: huge open world map
Cultural moment: Instagram had just released Hyperlapse.

So, we made a “Hyperlapse” one- take parkour video.

(We, uh, broke a controller in anger at failing the first 30 times to get it right).

Game Pillar: customizable weapons
Community q: are there guns?!

So we made this silly 60 kills in 60 seconds piece. Casual reveal of a hugeeee question.

Also we made an Epic Fails trailer because of course we did.

The results: Dying Light became the #1 game of Jan & Feb 2015 and still holds the 1st month sales record for a new IP survival/horror game.

Dying Highlights were largely credited with helping sway community sentiment, earning 4m+ views w/ $0 paid support.