SteamWorld Heist II - Announcement & launch assets
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SteamWorld Heist II - Announcement & launch assets
In short
We were delighted to rekindle our partnership with Thunderful Games for the announcement and launch of SteamWorld Heist II. Image & Form’s bullet-bouncing original took the world by storm back in 2015. Fans and critics loved its charming steampunk aesthetic and addictive, in-depth combat. The sequel was unveiled during a Nintendo Indie World Showcase this April, sending the SteamWorld community wild with anticipation. Our role was to support the announcement and launch phases with high-profile media placements and punchy video ads for major social media platforms. Read on to find out how we did it.
Deliverables
IGN Quickslider
Custom key art
Video ads
Robots in a slide
An announcement of this stature demands to be seen far and wide. And where better to go to reach millions of gamers than IGN, the world’s most-read gaming publication.
IGN’s prime advertising real estate sits at the top of its homepage. This unit is known as the Quickslider, and it dynamically expands and collapses as users scroll up and down the page.
Heist II took this coveted spot as part of its announcement campaign, and it was up to us to design an asset fit for tens of millions of eyeballs. Another consideration was that this would be the first time the Heist II brand would be seen publicly in an advertising campaign. We knew our work needed to be of the highest quality.
Custom key art
Using the colourful assets provided by the Thunderful team, we created attractive custom key art that combined beautiful, illustrated character and environment art with vital info, including a strong CTA, the game’s release date and its logo.
The Quickslider includes space for a video off-centre to the right, which we needed to consider during our design process. Meanwhile, the collapsed version of the placement significantly changes the asset’s dimensions, meaning our key art had to be adaptable while losing none of its impact.
The Quickslider features on both the desktop and mobile versions of IGN. Again, versatility was our top priority during our key art production. Finally, we ensured that our material was localised into French and German for use in those major European territories.
Video ads
In addition to the Quickslider, we created a video ad to run as part of the Heist II reveal. This production focused on how players could develop their skills as they became more experienced at the game.
We began by showing a “day 1 player” executing the most basic combat attacks. The video then cut to a “day 100 player” performing elaborate, fun trick shots that both new and returning players would appreciate.
Following a successful announcement phase, our attention turned to Heist II’s launch period. The Thunderful team asked us to develop two creative video concepts to support this part of the campaign.
The brief was clear. The videos needed to explore Heist II at a deep level, showcasing its compelling narrative and positioning it as a premium console title.
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The four windows
We called our first concept “four windows”. A simple but effective idea, this video featured four windows, each exploring a different element of Heist II’s gameplay—story, recruitment, combat and upgrades.
While the idea was simple, the execution was anything but. We carefully storyboarded the video, ensuring each gameplay element was showcased equally during the tight running time.
The final video required extensive design and motion graphics work. Our team manipulated Heist II’s user interface to work within the ad while maintaining the game’s console credentials.
Lock, stock
Our second video became known as the “Guy Ritchie” concept. This ad focused on Heist II’s characters in a homage to classic heist movies.
In Heist II, each character has their own class, abilities and gameplay styles. Our video concentrated on four of them, introducing each with a punchy montage that will be familiar to anyone who has watched slick heist movies like Ocean’s Eleven and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
As with our first video, this production made heavy use of design and motion graphics to bring the characters to life and highlight how their styles impact gameplay.
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Get in touch
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