The long-rumored follow-up to Ubisoft’s 2018 title Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was recently revealed via a so-called “first look gameplay trailer,” and, for all its circumstance and carefully-crafted visual appeal, fans weren’t happy. A highly-scripted, intensely-theatrical portrayal of the game, Ubisoft may as well have been announcing another movie based on the Assassin’s Creed property, as the trailer conveyed very little aside from the game’s title and setting and gave away absolutely nothing in terms of actual gameplay.
Fans certainly have a right to be upset, as this reveal certainly betrayed what was advertised by the title, but, by now, gamers have absolutely no reason to be surprised. In 2020, the term “gameplay trailer” means almost nothing, and most AAA trailers are about as trustworthy as a promise made by Peter Molyneux. That’s remained a gaming industry constant since the onset of the 3D era, and we shouldn’t expect to see any changes in the near future. The term has been so distorted that we can’t possibly know what to expect from most gameplay trailers at this point, and they’ve become so ludicrously overrated that it’s tough to understand why there’s still hype surrounding any of them.
For a reminder of just how overrated gameplay trailers can be, one need only go back 2017 to Anthem’s infamous gameplay reveal trailer. Though it wowed audiences and built a considerable amount of anticipation among BioWare fans, it did little more than demo the core concepts of the game. A post-release Kotaku-published exposé revealed that work on the game had barely even begun when the trailer debuted, and EA’s claim that it was genuine footage running in-game in real-time was a near-complete fabrication.
Furthermore, overly-ambitious gameplay trailers were rampant during the transition to eighth-gen consoles back in 2012 and 2013. Ubisoft, the everpresent arbiters of all things overhyped, courted massive amounts of controversy at the time for debuting a Watch Dogs gameplay trailer that was visually far superior to what eventually released. A subsequent developer interview revealed that the team behind the game overestimated the power of then next-gen hardware and had to scale back the game significantly. Though it may not have been a purposeful con, gamers felt duped all the same.
Still, perhaps the most infamous controversy surrounding a gameplay trailer came all the way back in 2005 with Sony’s presentation of Guerrilla Games’ Killzone 2. The trailer was represented as genuine gameplay running on a PlayStation 3, though the masses later discerned that the console wasn’t prepared to run anything near what was presented. It was, for many, the first taste of deceit via video game trailer, and, after fifteen years, it has yet to be forgotten.
The aforementioned Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is in a very similar position; we don’t have a firm idea of what the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are capable of, and we can’t yet know if what Ubisoft is presenting is genuine or not. Still, rather than gripe about how disingenuous trailers like these may seem, it’s time to recognize that, most of the time, gameplay trailers just aren’t worth getting all that worked up about. Valhalla could very well end up being a great addition to the AC lineage, but for now, we definitely aren’t buying into the hype.