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Missing Trailer Scene / Video Games

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Missing Trailer Scenes in Video Games.

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    Batman: Arkham 
  • The last three games in the series were officially announced with cinematic teaser trailers rendered in movie-quality CGI by Blur Studio, each with a self-contained plot rather than featuring actual gameplay.
    • The trailer for Batman: Arkham City depicted a squadron of TYGER guards trying (and failing) to arrest Batman, presented as flashbacks through the squad’s leader being viciously interrogated Hugo Strange before dying. The trailer depicts various features not present in the final game (such as using quickfire gadgets while glading and the Ultra-Batclaw), but unlike the other two examples the trailer itself is canon to the rest of the series as the guard’s body can be found in-game and scanned to solve one of Riddler’s challenges.
  • Batman: Arkham Origins had an announcement trailer where Batman gets to fight Deathstroke but is interrupted by Deadshot.
  • Batman: Arkham Knight had an announcement teaser where Thomas Wayne's speech is heard about his passing of his gifts to Bruce.

    Destroy All Humans! 
  • Destroy All Humans! 2 had a teaser trailer that shows what the U.S., Russia, Tokyo and London were afraid of. It closes to a shot of Crypto using a peace sign.
  • Destroy All Humans!: Path of the Furon had a scene in the trailer where Crypto points his gun at the camera and says "How's this for destiny?"
  • Destroy All Humans! (the 2020 remake) had a trailer where Crypto hypnotizes an American city to "Ich Will" before he vaporizes them. Since it is a Shot-for-Shot Remake of the 2005 classic, it obviously never appears in the game.

    Halo 
  • Halo 2 had a teaser trailer where John-117 goes into space from the station. In the final game, he delivers a Covenant bomb.
  • Halo 3 had a teaser trailer where John-117 attacks the Covenant on a blue field.
  • Halo: Reach had an announcement trailer where Reach has seen its first glassing with people worried.

    Jak & Daxter 
  • Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy had Daxter communicating with people as they play the game.
  • Jak II: Renegade has three advertisements showing tourists entering Haven City, encountering Metal Heads and Baron Praxis and a test of the Peace Maker.
  • Jak 3: Wastelander has two advertisements that promise they "won't end like this". For one of them, Daxter says "I am your father" to Jak, to the latter's confusion. This was made to hide that Damas is Jak's true father.

    Metal Gear 
  • Perhaps the most shocking example of this trope in the video game medium was its use in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. It was advertised as mostly straight-forward sequel starring Solid Snake, barely featuring the real main character — a rookie fanboy of Snake's codenamed Raiden — at all. Most of the footage came from the game's intro level, where you do play as Solid Snake, but two scenes from Raiden's portion involving a cyborg ninja and a Harrier attack on the George Washington Bridge were specifically recreated in the intro's location for the trailer. Unlike many other examples, this one earned the ire of many fans. It's also a rare example of this trope being used for aesthetic rather than marketing effect.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had several sequences from the trailer that never appeared in the game proper, although some are accessible in the game through obscure or not widely-known means:
    • Several trailers showed footage from a cutscene in Africa of child soldiers being trained to fire assault rifles by an instructor. While the kids training with the instructor can be seen in the final product by going to Masa Village during Mission 13 ("Pitch Black"), waiting until dawn then watching the kids training with the instructor, this doesn't appear as a cutscene.
    • Another trailer showed footage of a prisoner (dressed similarly to those encountered in Ground Zeroes) being tortured before being shot in the back, in a location that looks very similar to Camp Omega from the same title. While there were claims that this was part of an unrealized Old Save Bonus that would have been accessed through a data transfer and would have involved the player going back to the same location, this cutscene never appears in the game. However, the animations seen in this footage are accessible during Mission 6 ("Where Do The Bees Sleep") — if you follow the soldiers transporting the Hamid prisoner into Smasei Fort all the way down to the basement and not trigger any combat alerts, you can see the soldiers find the Killer Bee and taunt the prisoner before executing him in the same way as the cutscene.
    • A cutscene of Venom Snake walking through a burned African village, dropping to his knees and screaming up at the sky doesn't appear in the final product, although most believe that these animations were repurposed from Mission 43 ("Shining Lights, Even in Death") where Venom does the exact same thing after he's forced to kill his infected staff members. In the final game, there is a burned village (north of Masa Village) that can be visited and a short cutscene that plays with Miller explaining what happened when you approach a pile of charred bodies, but not the exact sequence seen in the trailer.
    • Several moments displayed by Venom Snake in Mission 43 are prominent in the trailers, but aren't in the game proper (apparently, most of these were edited by Hideo Kojima to play up certain themes present in the plot, and were never intended to be in the game itself). Among these is a shot of Venom Snake staring away from the flames while cremating his infected troops in Mission 43 (while his face is covered in blood) and a transitional shot of Snake's face turning into a skull (which provides the page image for the game's associated Nightmare Fuel page).

    Mortal Kombat 
  • Mortal Kombat X had an announcement trailer of Scorpion and Sub-Zero fighting on the field before Scorpion finishes Sub-Zero.
  • Mortal Kombat 11 had an announcement trailer where Scorpion and Raiden fight. Raiden kills Scorpion but Scorpion of the past kills Raiden.

    Ratchet & Clank 

    Sly Cooper 

    A 
  • Ace Attorney:
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies had this gameplay trailer, implying Phoenix himself was the victim of one of the cases. This actually turned out to have been a scene created purely for demonstration purposes that isn't in the final game at all. Another trailer showed a demonstration of the Mood Matrix mechanic being used to prove that Ted Tonate is the first case's culprit, with a completely different motivation than the one he haves in the actual game.
    • The trailer for Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney. One can make a drinking game of how many scenes never made it into the game, or were vastly altered. In fact, just try to find an exact scene that was kept in.
    • The launch trailer for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice shows Ahlbi Ur'gaid with Psyche-Locks, which never happens in the final game. The scene in Case 5 where you find out he managed to sneak into the palace plays out as if one could have been there, so it's possible it was cut.
  • Aliens: Colonial Marines took this to such an extreme that in many countries the trailers were banned or marked with heavy disclaimers. It turned out that almost the entirety of the pre-release trailer was either created purely for the trailer itself, removed from the game for various reasons, or changed beyond recognition by the time the game was released. Things removed included:
    • One prerelease gameplay reel showed the player using a smart gun from behind a barricade to take out xenomorphs in the Sulaco's cargo bay. Soon after, when the umbilical explodes, the player is shown to have a choice of which way they want to grab onto as objects fly at them into space, implying a Non-Standard Game Over for failure. In the final product, no smart gun is ever utilized and the umbilical escape scene is non-playable.
    • Another gameplay preview showed an entire sequence that never appeared in the game proper. The player character wakes up from a concussion, gives his commanding officer the finger, and they go to secure the operations room in Hadley's Hope. After doing so, the PC and two other AI Marines fend off an attack in the maintenance tunnels with multiple sentry guns, then the PC is knocked out of a window by a xeno, who he subsequently shoots and kills. He is forced to run away from a Crusher charging after him, and barely makes it into the vehicle bay. The group then has a last stand against a horde of xenos (and defend themselves with powerloaders outfitted with flamethrowers) before a Queen busts in, eviscerates several soldiers and attacks the PC.
    • One trailer showed a shot of the Sulaco and Sephora plowing into the landscape of Hadley's Hope, while in the game only the aftermath is seen.
  • The original trailer for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs features a suspenseful scene in which the main character cowers under a stairway as a squealing, unseen monstrosity batters its way into the room. Too bad this event never takes place in the actual game.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: The 2019 trailer features multiple scenes that were absent in the final release, such as Ann slicing part of a building into pieces, battling several mechs on top of a subway, and the Varanus crawling from a elevator shaft. This even extends to a scene that was exclusively in the demo; where Ann encountered someone by a train in a snowy field, which is also missing in the actual release.

    B 
  • The State of Play 2019 gameplay trailer for Babylons Fall had the player parrying Zenon's sword, where it then flies up in the air and uses the Gideon Coffin to attack him with it. In the final game, you can't do that because that scene was actually scripted.
  • The vast majority of the plot seen in trailers and preview footage of BioShock Infinite did not make it into the actual game beyond the broad thematic strokes of the world. This initial gameplay trailer is a good example; though Colombia and the player's fighting mechanics are more or less the same, this entire plotline does not occur in the game and Elizabeth's powers seem distinctly more magical than what she could do in the final game.
  • The "Holiday Special" trailer for Bully had a unseen scene where the character Gary tells the protagonist Jimmy how "young love... is a beautiful thing", and then pantomimes doggy style sex while saying "spank me". It is probable that this cutscene was removed due to sexual content, which could have hurt Bully's T rating. Not only was the cutscene removed from the game but the dialogue for it was removed from the data files entirely.

    C 
  • Crash of the Titans has four cartoon shorts that show off some of the gameplay mechanics including Carbon Crash.

    D 
  • The announcement trailer for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony had Monokuma in a conversation with Monomi, followed by Shirokuma and Kurokuma engaging in a Mass Panic Debate, ending with a shot of an unknown figure that's never seen in the actual game.
  • The trailer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution features several cutscenes that never appear in the actual game. One had Federova gunning down innocent protestors to start a riot, when in the game Federova was dead by the time the riot starts and it appears the police managed to handle the troublemakers without much bloodshed at all.
  • One promotional video for Disco Elysium showcasing Felix Biederman's behind the scenes voice acting ended with him peforming Lely's Doorgunner Megamix tape. The tape was unvoiced in the eventual release of the game; when it was finally voiced for The Final Cut, Lely was recast with Mikee Goodman.

    G 
  • The announcement trailer for God of War: Ascension had Kratos in blood chains before he throws them and covers the screen.
  • Almost everything from the reveal trailer for Goodbye Volcano High is absent from the final game due to being made prior to the game's visual style being finalized and the story's rewrite. The only major scene still present is the bonfire scene.

    F 
  • Final Fantasy XV:
    • Due to the infamous amount of Development Hell, most of the game's trailers contain nothing but missing scenes. The game was announced in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII but wasn't in actual development until 2010 and wasn't released until 2016. As a result, early trailers show very different versions of the games, such as a more violent version featuring humans being killed and unused characters (most glaringly, Stella from many Versus XIII trailers, who ended up replaced with the near identical Luna).
    • Trailers showed a few segments that were not in the actual game, including a hallway battle, a different design for the king, and a Leviathan battle that appeared more cinematic than the quick time event battle in the released game.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's:
    • The trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's showed Bonnie the Bunny running down the hallway to the Office. He does not do this in the final game; Foxy takes that role. The clip of Bonnie removing his costume head (revealing his endoskeleton) is not seen in the game, either.
    • The trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's 2 featured a line from the "Phone Guy" that was never used in the game and only appeared in the trailer. Several shots in the trailer (akin to cutscenes) were only made for the game's promotion.
      "Hello? He-helloooo? Well, if you're hearing this, then...chances are, you've made a very poor career choice."
    • The third game plays with this. The scene with the twitching Springtrap does happen in game, but with different graphics.

    I 

    L 
  • The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night has three shorts that serve as an alternative beginning to the game.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: The scene where Link jumps on a chandelier in the E3 announcement trailer was animated specifically for the trailer. The chandelier exists in the game files but isn't a solid model.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
      • The first trailer had a scene of Link walking through a dark, shadowy forest by the light of his lantern. For some reason there are a lot of cats in the forest as well, implying animals held a bigger role (as do several early screenshots). This forest was absent from the game. A different unused forest exists as a Debug Room but the actual "beta forest" isn't in the final game.
      • Another scene from the first trailer showed a small army of monsters marching up a hill and Link riding out to meet them on Epona, set amidst a fiery sunset, and a scene in the second trailer showed Link walking through a forest with some kind of a giant. Both scenes were cut, though it's speculated that the monster army might have been an early version of the Bulbin attack on Karkariko. The giant doesn't appear in the finished game at all.

    N 
  • The reveal trailer for New Pokémon Snap included shots recorded from the Secret Side Path route, which wasn't included in the game when it released (though it was eventually released as DLC a few months later).
  • Night in the Woods: Mae telling Gregg that "Everything sucks forever", as mentioned in the quote. In the game proper, Lori M. says this line in the epilogue. One of the pre-release screenshots had the red-furred mouse girl who hangs out with the other teens in the tunnel saying, "Our parents told us not to talk to you." As with the above, this line was given to Lori M. instead, another mouse, at the statue near the Ol' Pickaxe.

    P 
  • Persona 5:
    • The first trailer shows the initial 4 party members, Joker, Morgana, Ann and Ryuji, planning a heist at Leblanc's first floor. In the game proper, the first heist's hideout is the school rooftop, and Leblanc's first floor isn't used as one until nearly the end of the game, when the entire party is present.
    • One trailer shows the party transformed into mice and running from guards in Kamoshida's Palace. In the final game, the mouse gimmick was moved to the Cruise Ship Palace, the second-to-last dungeon.
  • Persona 5 Royal:
    • An event present in the trailers but unused in the final release involves flipping a switch on a giant statue of Shadow Kamoshida in his palace to proceed.
    • One trailer begins with an anime cutscene of Joker in Shibuya at the start of the 3rd semester, while a static image of Kasumi Yoshizawa appears on the TV screen and the words "I'm the one responsible for crushing that dream" are heard. No such scene is present in the final game, though the game's files indicate it was planned to be there at one point but was removed.
  • The Pikmin series is infamous for this. The first trailer for the first game showed radically different gameplay, focusing on growing Pikmin. There are also five locations that can't be seen in the final game proper. Two of the areas exist as unused content, but regardless they're not present in a normal run of the game.
    • A trailer for Pikmin 2 depicted cut areas that appear in the Piklopedia instead in the final. Even in the final game, you still can't play through them.
  • Prince of Persia: Warrior Within has a marketing campaign called A Precursor To Fate which reveal some of the Prince's struggles before the game.

    S 
  • Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: The Character Spotlight videos' scenes all don't ever appear in-game.
  • A trailer for South Park: The Stick of Truth includes a giant Clyde Donovan busting through city hall, and the Vampire Kids. The Vamps only appear in a cutscene in Clyde's fortress then are never seen again. On another note, Crab People and Hippies were seen to be fightable enemies but only one Crab Person appeared in the game as a friend. Justified since the script was 850 pages long and they had to trim it down.
  • The reveal trailer for Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion shows Agent 8 spotting Inkopolis Square in the distance after emerging from a subway tunnel. This scene never appears in the actual game; Agent 8 instead emerges from an underground testing facility and is picked up by Marina and Pearl via helicopter.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Luigi's Mansion: The E3 2001 trailer featured Luigi entering a room with vastly moving objects, an extended shot of him opening the mansion's front door, as well as the infamous "depressed Luigi" shot at the end.
    • Super Mario Galaxy 2: The original announcement trailer showcased Mario fighting a giant silver Chain Chomp while in the actual there are miniature silver chomps as enemies.
    • Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle: While Peach's actual introduction still fits her being "The Badass Princess", her Let's Get Dangerous! scene in the pre-release trailers isn't in the actual game.

    T 
  • The promotional trailers for The World Ends with You contain more than a few scenes that never made it into the game, like Neku flying up the side of a building and an extra scene by the Udagawa tag wall. Many fans mistakenly believe that those scenes were specifically cut from the English-language version, mostly because they are among the most popular scenes to include in fanvids.

    U 
  • Undertale parodies this in the release trailer. In-between shots of in-game footage, suddenly, inexplicably, a weird blobby 3D model of Toriel rams itself into a pile of untextured cubes and flies away as a ghostly, photo-realistic version of the same character says "my child you are breaking my heart". (The game itself is entirely 2D.) A caption underneath notes that this is "PROBABLY NOT ACTUAL GAME FOOTAGE?" Its PlayStation 4 trailer showed the same scene, now captioned "PROBABLY STILL NOT ACTUAL GAME FOOTAGE?", and the Nintendo Switch trailer takes it even further. This time, instead of crashing through blocks, she's flying after Mew Mew, firing lasers from her eyes that cause explosions, while the realistic Toriel in the background now says "My child, I shall break your heart." There's also some random trees and blocks in the background, one tree of which has Flowey's face, as well as a monster truck driving past. And the note now says "TOBY WHERE IS THIS FOOTAGE EVEN COMING FROM??"

    W 
  • Warframe has multiple instances of this in the trailers for The New War.
    • The CGI trailer had the Tenno staring down and preparing to battle Natah aboard the Sentient Mothership (revealed in the game to be named Preghasa), with the latter being accompanied by dozens of smaller Sentients. This never happens in the quest itself.
    • The Tennocon 2021 trailer had a scene where the Operator arrived at the Plains of Eidolon via Archwing and obsreved the carnage around them, with the gameplay trailer continuing the scene by having the Operator exit their frame and have a moment of doubt at the fighting going on around them. In the final game, the Operator never travels to Earth during the quest until after that fight is over.

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