While nudging forward the art and craft of 3D animation, these eight outstanding game trailers, cinematics, and tournament films also offer deeply considered narratives and a possible peak into the future of filmmaking.

All films were published in The Stash Permanent Collection during 2022 and are listed here in chronological order by the issue of publication.
 
 
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FREE FIRE “BOOYAH DAY” Game Trailer
Included in STASH 151

Passion Pictures director Jon Saunders digs into a mix of anime and comic book references to evolve the look he established on the Free Fire “Project Cobra” trailer (Stash 147) in this latest blast of action for Garena’s mobile battle royale title.

Passion Pictures: “Jon and Passion developed this visual style alongside Garena into an entirely original look for the ‘Booyah Day’ film, blending multiple styles and techniques seamlessly.”
 
 
 

BLIZZARD “DIABLO II: RESURRECTED” Cinematic Cutdown
Included in STASH 151

Cut down from a total of 27 minutes of cinematics animation completed for Blizzard’s action RPG Diablo® II Resurrected, this two-and-a-half-minute sequence offers ample evidence of why Glasgow’s Axis Studios remains in the elite tier of CG studios.

From the team at Axis: “All the key performances were captured over a four-day mocap shoot to lip-synced dialogue to add visual fidelity to the performances.”
 
 
 

NARAKA “CHAMPIONSHIP” Tournament Promo
Included in STASH 152

Sehsucht director Hans-Christoph Schultheiss (aka HanzoHanzo) stages a massive CG martial arts battle to launch Netease’s inaugural international e-sports tournament for the new Naraka: Bladepoint game.

Hans-Christoph Schultheiss: “The challenge was within a tight timeline we needed to develop a technically viable creative approach that reflects the triple-A look of the game, and resonates with a very demanding audience.”
 
 
 

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS “RIOT WILD RIFT” Anthem Film
Included in STASH 154

Patrick Coffey, director at Tendril in Toronto: “Tendril was invited to collaborate with Trevor Conrad from Psyop to design and craft a 2.5-minute music video for Riot Games promoting the Wild Rift Icons Global Championship.

“The main creative challenge was to create a visual style for Wild Rift that would maintain the excitement of the LoL core brand yet speak to the unique nature of the Wild Rift platform and community. It needed to be bold, energetic, youthful, and diverse.”
 
 
 

MAGIC: THE GATHERING “STREETS OF NEW CAPENNA” Game Trailer
Included in STASH 154

Tosh Kodama, CD at Imaginary Forces in Los Angeles: “The brief was to bring the characters and the Art Deco-influenced world of Streets of Capenna game to life.

“We had amazing character illustrations as reference but nothing was modeled in 3D. The challenge in sculpting each character was to capture the essence of the illustration but also make sure the sculpture added dimensionality and depth.”
 
 
 

STAR WARS JEDI: SURVIVOR Game Trailer
Included in STASH 154

From the team at The Mill in LA: “We joined forces with Electronic Arts, Respawn Entertainment, and Lucasfilm Games on the reveal of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to the action-adventure video game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

“To unveil the highly anticipated sequel, The Mill director Robert Sethi collaborated with these teams to create a fully CGI, hyper-realistic, cinematic game trailer.”
 
 
 

SKULL AND BONES “LONG LIVE PIRACY” Games Trailer
Included in STASH 155

Emnet Mulugeta, director at Goodbye Kansas in Stockholm, Sweden: “The brief from Ubisoft Singapore and DDB Paris was to create an engaging and exciting cinematic trailer of the upcoming Skull and Bones game that pushed the boundaries of full CG work in terms of both narrative and visual execution.

“The challenge in storytelling was establishing the hero character’s motivation whilst also introducing the viewer to the challenges of the game’s world.”
 
 
 

2089: FRONTIER Game TrailerGames
Included in STASH 156

Somei Sun, director and CG artist in Singapore: “The clients approached me after seeing my previous Evangelion short film (Stash 142), hoping to create an equally realistic concept video to truthfully show their game’s worldview and heroine.

“So we used AI to mix a CG face with the real actor to achieve a hyperrealistic game character, hoping to make the audience have an illusion that they do not know whether it is live-action or CG.”
 
 
Watch all the Best of Stash 2022 Collections.