In the year In 2017, perhaps the coolest commercial released for a game came out. It now has almost 8 million views.
What is this commercial? The commercial, released in September 2017, promotes the role-playing game “Middle-earth: Shadow of War”, which was released in October of the same year.
To date, the video has garnered 7.96 million views on YouTube and has over 128,000 likes.
The commercial shows the connection of the player “Brian” to an NPC named Thrak. This is an Orc who has joined Brian through the game’s Nemesis system and aids him in battle.
You can see the commercial for Middle-earth: Shadow of War here:
The Middle-earth: Shadow of War commercial tells the story of Brian and the orc Thrak
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What kind of game is this?
What is happening in the commercial? Brian saves his companion Thrak in a fight with the words “Not today, Thrak” (Not today, Thrak), which thanks him with years of loyalty. The commercial shows Thrak appearing repeatedly in Brian’s real life and saving his life repeatedly, always with the phrase “Not today, Brian.”
The special thing about the commercial is that the video tells the story backwards. The viewer first sees Brian lying in a hospital bed as an old man and a doctor wants to turn off his life-support equipment. Then Thrak steps in, grabs the doctor and throws him off screen.
We then see Thrak catching Brian as he falls off the roof of a house a few years earlier and using the Heimlich Grab to save him as he is about to choke to death while eating at a restaurant. Only at the end of the commercial do we learn that Thrak retaliates for Brian rescuing him.
“The best ad I’ve ever seen”
Why is the commercial so cool? The commercial showcases one of the core gameplay aspects of Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the Nemesis system, while telling the story of Brian and Thrak – a balancing act the marketing team pulled off. Various players also praise this in the comments on YouTube:
But not only the commercial for Middle-earth: Shadow of War manages to present a game well. Riot Games and League of Legends release videos year after year that delight fans and garner millions of views.
A bombastic League of Legends video has now garnered 138 million views – showing just how huge LoL is