2025 has been one of the years of all time for trailers; take that as you will. We’ve had a scourge of AI trailers breach into the general marketing sphere, and I will admit, it’s quite horrifying. This of course, is talking not just from an aesthetic standpoint, but a creativity standpoint. It shows audiences “Hey, we have no budget or talent to make something that showcases our game in the best manner possible”, and therefore, that the game they are trying to sell is simply not worth your time or money.

But enough negativity, I’m currently writing this from Pisa airport at 6 am high off a Macciato and half a mortadella panini. Here are three trailers from 2025 that I thought were good. Prepare for some passionate rambling. This list is in no particular order, but just highlighting a few bits of content that stood out to me during the year of our lord 2025.

Fidget Physics

I love shitposting. Anyone who has seen the content that I have made for Vampire Survivors can assure you that shitposting is a modern art form in games marketing in the mid-2020s. This statement is completely baseless, by the way, but I stand by it and hold it as certified truth.

Anyway, Fidget Physics is one of my favorite shitposts that came out on social platforms this year. It’s hard to even call it a trailer, but God, it managed to sell me on the game content instantly. Essentially, Fidget Physics is a desktop pixel physics simulator, where you can paint, explode, and do all sorts of cool stuff to your precious worktop. Pretty simple in concept, right? But how do you create a compelling narrative from this? Well, you don’t, at least that’s what Sam Chiet achieves in this “trailer”.

The trailer is one unedited shot of a desktop, a notepad window, and a webcam window showcasing the most gaudy fisheye close-up of Sam himself that is inherently hilarious. The audio of the trailer is the key driving point, taking a sample of what appears to be a woman venting and crying to a friend through a voice call. This mild breakdown is given general agreement by Sam through the 24 seconds of runtime, to which he pauses at the end for a “Wait what?”

What makes this trailer is the comedic timing and the sense of dramatic realism, accompanied by the tonal whiplash of the content being showcased on screen. Sam captioned the post with “I’m trying to make the best-sounding game trailer of all time, I think I got pretty close”. And yeah, I think he does. At least in the sense that it draws you into an incredibly awkward, grounded scenario. I’ve watched this trailer multiple times due to its hilarity, and because of that, the game has been sold.

A-tier shitposting.

Dog Witch

I’m a big fan of goofy little guys, and this trailer is the goofiest and the little-guy-iest. Dog Witch is a deckbuilder RPG similar to Slay The Spire, which absolutely bathes in a quirky, tongue-and-cheek aesthetic where you play as the aforementioned Dog Witch. What makes this trailer stand out to me is the structure. It’s clean, easy to understand, whilst at the same time being able to maintain a sense of humor throughout its runtime.

The voice-over really drives the momentum of this trailer. I’m not a large fan of over-marketed descriptors within trailers, explaining how many weapons there are, or the exact number of ways to make Dog Witch bark, but the tone of voice used in this trailer is incredibly casual. Whilst informative, it also feels as if a friend is recommending you the game at a party, which more marketers should take control of going forward into 2026. A lot of younger audiences tend to switch off whenever a product feels unashamedly marketed towards them, so this grounded, relatable approach works in drawing in the viewer tenfold.

Dog Witch’s trailer has also reminded me how good an aside is within content. Short, catchy segments that either repeat what has been said or talk directly to the audience is something that I see a lot in YouTube meme video content, and I think that implementing it in this trailer further adds to its success. Whether it’s “Lazer ponies” or “Friends”, the comedic segments almost feel like a ‘Movies with Mikey’ style of editing; wacky, quirky, incredible.

Overall, Dog Witch has a trailer that is as confident as it is quirky. Who’s a good boy?

Unbeatable: Trailer 2

They can’t keep getting away with this. Every single piece of video content that creator D-Cell has made for Unbeatable has been some of the best that I’ve seen in the industry to date. I’m not even saying this as a bit; these trailers are so good that they have me questioning my own skillset as a video editor. These ads for Unbeatable feel like a true role model for what trailers can look like and how they can stand as their own creative achievements.

This trailer is everything: a game recap, a gameplay showcase, a music track reveal, a demo reveal, and, overall, a massive celebration of what the game is up to this point. What this trailer does is untraditional in a lot of trailer-structure mechanics, and the key thing that really draws me in is the change of voice-over halfway through. What seems like a seamless transition between vocal guidance actually serves as a way of unconsciously splitting the trailer down the middle. As mentioned in Dog Witch, the first voice creates a casual, friend-talking-to-you-about-the-game sort of vibe, a simple recommendation. It works. The second, however, is more celebratory and showcase-focused, confident in the sheer amount of music content to reveal this early in the marketing campaign.

I’m a massive sucker for the ending too, a montage of different artistic styles and interpretations of the Unbeatable logo. It showcases a confidence in itself that this project isn’t just a simple indie rhythm game; it’s an incredible undertaking, almost reminiscent of the editing style in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Again, D-cell has shown that title cards within trailers can be creative; they don’t just reveal a boring list of how many levels are in a game, or how many characters you can unlock, it draws parallels between marketing the game and celebrating the artistic style that makes Unbeatable so impressive in the first place.

The Unbeatable marketing campaign should be put on a pedestal for all to see, as a reference point for how to achieve a game that looks incredibly pretty, and has marketing that lives and breathes the aesthetic it’s trying to sell. Even though the game has unfortunately been delayed by one month (at the time of writing), I’m hoping the best for the game to absolutely smash expectations both critically and in terms of audience sales.

Closing thoughts

I think that 2025 offers a lot of opportunity for learning how trailers can evolve by expressing the casual, humor-focused style that indie titles are following this past decade. I’m a firm believer that we, as trailer makers, should seek to be on the same level as our audience, not as an overbearing “talking down” being that tells rather than showcases. These three titles are a perfect example of this. They understand humor, fun, and all around what makes these games as great to showcase as ever. Here’s to 2026!

Owen Trett is an award-winning video editor who specialises in video game trailers. Having worked on content for the BAFTA-winning Vampire Survivors, The Cabin Factory, and Rusty’s Retirement. They also create content for Limit Break Mentorship too, woah!