It’s not every day that a game developer or publisher releases a truly well-crafted, left-of-field trailer to hype the upcoming release of their game. It’s ever rarer for said trailer to take the form of a live-action faux documentary that explores the world in which the game is set to build out that world’s lore. And it’s even rarer still for that fake documentary to be good enough — both in execution and production value — to hold up even if it were completely removed from the context of the game itself.
Rocketwerkz manages to do all of those things with Icarus: Fatal Sky like it was just another Tuesday.
Icarus: Fatal Sky is a pitch-perfect narrative that covers one of the earlier, fatal drops on to the planet Icarus, the planet that players will themselves be dropping onto in Icarus: First Cohort. Acting has always been a bit of a sore spot for video-game-related properties, but Fatal Sky manages to deliver a well-rounded and well-represented cast, all of whom are natural and believable.
Fatal Sky excels in its “talking heads” approach, even going so far as to include those small moments in documentaries — thanks in no small part to Errol Morris’s contributions to the genre — where we see the subjects getting dialed in, adjusting their positions and looking off-screen for direction or to be told when to start speaking for their interview.
As an enthusiast of both video games and film, it brings me joy to see a competent and rather incredible melding of the two genres — a feat that seems to elude even major Hollywood studios to this day. Although, if we are being honest, the internet has long been the home of truly impressive fan movies and smaller, company-sponsored short films. In that context, Icarus: Fatal Sky is only the latest to impress.
Will any of Fatal Sky‘s characters or plot elements show up in the game itself? I guess we’ll have to play Icarus: First Cohort to find out.
For now, check out Icarus: Fatal Sky trailer/documentary below.
