Role: Lead Strategist
At gaming conventions worldwide, billions are spent on video game announcements every year, most of it on promotional trailers. But in a sea of sequels and established properties, Horizon Zero Dawn was a brand new world. In fact, among the 15 most anticipated games of 2016, Horizon Zero Dawn was one of only two original franchises to come to market. All the rest were highly anticipated sequels from major gaming franchises, each with its own proven pedigree. Gamers tend to trust sequels as much as they remain skeptical of new titles, which they feel seldom live up to the hype. We needed to prove that Horizon Zero Dawn was a game worthy of your attention and would deliver.
To stand out, we didn’t just want another trailer. We wanted to instantly immerse our fans in our dangerous and beautiful new world. So we invaded theirs.
We took two Machines from the game’s world off of the screen and onto the floor of the world’s biggest gaming conventions. The “Watchers” were incredibly true-to-gameplay: 8-feet-tall and 13-feet-long animatronic replicas built by one of the best practical effects shops in Hollywood. These were impressive machines that gamers could interact with—just like gameplay—and immediately understand the strategy and challenge that would be required to take down these characters in game.
Our task wasn’t only to impress the crowds at gaming conventions, but also to use those fans to build advocacy across social media. Not only for the first big beat of E3, but throughout the 11 month build up to launch. This required the Watchers to not become a one-trick-dinosaur, instead highlighting different aspect of the game at key beats throughout the year. The Watchers became content-generating machines both through our fans or our owned channels as we created scripted and reality-based custom content all the way from reveal to launch.
The Watchers had to be point-for-point true-to-game. Not only in their visual design but also in their movements and character performance. To bring the Watchers off the screen and onto E3’s showroom floor, we partnered with the top practical effects house in Hollywood: Spectral Motion. The battle-worn texture of the Watchers was achieved with a mix of vacu-formed foam core and other materials that was then custom-painted. To achieve the specific in-game movements, we partnered with Spectral Motion’s lead engineer to modify the animatronic neck and head system he pioneered for a blockbuster film years earlier.
Results:
151M people reached
559M impressions
1000% lift in social mentions
$3.16M in media value