Wed, Jun 29, 2011 | 21:21 BST

Famous Dead Island trailer wins Cannes ad festival award

The infamous Dead Island trailer/short film from earlier this year has won an award at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The trailer quickly went viral after its initial release due to its evocative reverse slow motion style, and gruesome depiction of a family under siege by a horde of zombies.

The video gained even more traction when groups across the world became enraged by the trailer’s depiction of infanticide. Regardless of your individual stance on the content of the advertisement, there’s little denying that it was successful, as it reached millions of eyeballs and catapulted the game to triple-A status.

The award the trailer won was the Gold prize for Internet Film.

Dead Island is being developed by Polish developer Techland and published by Deep Silver.

9 comments

YoungZer0
29/06/11, 9:04 pm

Well deserved. Don’t understand the bitching about the game being different. Since when is that a problem? Never heard anybody complain that Halo: ODST is not Saving Private Ryan in Space.

Phoenixblight
29/06/11, 9:08 pm

The trailer is not made by Deep SIlver. SO what the trailer represents =/= game.

Bloggers, reviewers and players that got to try the game are saying its crap and not because its “different” because its *shock* crap.

jacobvandy
29/06/11, 9:13 pm

They’re really going all out with marketing this… Latest issue of PC Gamer has a traditional 2-page spread inside the front cover, and then 6 pages in the middle that start out like an ad for a generic island resort. I mean, I like what I’ve seen of the gameplay so far, but I can’t help but worry they’re overcompensating for something.

On a semi-related note, I counted all the advertisements in PCG, and they account for nearly half the pages in the damn thing!

YoungZer0
29/06/11, 9:30 pm

2: But Techland said it’s made by Deep Silver, or at least the idea came from it. And so far i haven’t read anything negative about it.

DSB
29/06/11, 9:40 pm

Great teaser is great.

Based on Call of Juarez I’d say Techland has a lot left to prove. It sounds fun, even if it is an amalgam of every zombie game under the sun.

AHA-Lambda
29/06/11, 9:44 pm

this game i feel will always be remembered as the game that never lived up to that one awesome trailer everyone talked about =/

it looks bland as fuck guys =s

deadstoned
29/06/11, 10:10 pm

It was a great trailer and deserves this award