The Best E3 Trailers of 2019

E3’s all about one thing: ads. It’s the World Series for videogame ads, and last week’s show did not disappoint. I wasn’t even there but I felt like I was because I got to see so many ads for so many different games that I’ll inevitably have to play for work some day when I could be outside enjoying what little time we have on this earth before the human race finally kills it dead. Instead I’m inside my early ‘80s suburban abode, playing games or writing about games or watching ads about games. Sometimes I even write about watching ads about games—sometimes like right now. It’s a big, beautiful world out there, so let’s talk about videogame trailers, okay?
Here are my favorites from this year’s E3. They’re in no order and there are only like seven of them because how many ads do you expect me to be impressed by, anyway? I’m not saying these are the games I most want to play from this year’s E3—I’m just saying that these are the trailers that did the best job of getting me interested in a game. Check ‘em out.
Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The sequel to the best game on the Switch doesn’t even have a name yet, but this short preview hints at a darker, creepier tone, with ripples of fire and an unknowable evil circling through an underground cavern. This sequel seems poised to be the Majora’s Mask to Breath of the Wild’s Ocarina of Time—the quick turnaround sequel that has to create a unique atmosphere to make up for not looking or feeling like a
Fall Guys
Maybe it’s residual love for Beetlejuice or Harry Belafonte, but the trailer for Devolver’s bite-sized battle royale hooked me from the first frame. I have no idea how any of these mini-games will actually work, or if they’ll be any fun to play, but the thought of turning that type of 100-person endurance race into a clutch of quick-hit microgames
Genesis Noir
If a trailer’s job is just to get you interested in something, Genesis Noir did as good a job as any other ad last week. It does NOT do a good job of explaining what in the hell is actually going on at any point during it, but that just ramp up my curiosity even more. I’m not entirely sold on the line-drawing style for the main character—it doesn’t always fit the backgrounds—but otherwise this is probably the most visually arresting game to get a trailer at E3 this year.