INTO THE DEAD: 10th anniversary
PikPok’s most successful franchise to date began on the 6th of December 2012, with the launch of Into the Dead, a revolutionary endless runner x first person shooter for mobile. In the December of 2022 we launched the Into the Dead: 10th Anniversary event as a way to commemorate this monumental milestone in the company’s history. For the event we dove in to the past, present and future of the franchise, with a specific focus on building up towards the future, because boy oh boy, did we have plans for the future. 2 full new game announcements (including Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days), a commitment to the continued support of the then 5-year old Into the Dead 2, a commemorative craft beer release in partnership with Garage Project and so much more, this project was jam packed.
The PAst, Present & Future
The core content we built for the 10th anniversary event were 3 livestream-style videos which housed developer interviews, teasers, trailers and some music videos with songs straight out of the franchise. All of these individual pieces of content were woven together and interlaced with our very own “live” host Harriet, who helped the flow of the content. Before we could unveil these however, we needed a quick and effective way of teasing the content, getting the word out to fans of the franchise, and intriguing those who might be unfamiliar. We decided to lean into the world of Into the Dead 2 (which features a radio heavily), creating fake frequencies to hint at what was to come.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Production, Strategy
Into the dead 3
The anniversary gave us the opportunity to make some big franchise announcements; the first was for Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days (which has its own page here). The second, was for something much more highly anticipated by fans of the first two games: Into the Dead 3. At the time of creating the teaser, the game was still in its very early days of development, so we had practically nothing to work with. Initially we’d planned a simple logo reveal, but I pushed for us to go further, convinced this needed to be memorable for diehard fans. With Madeleine Adams voicing a grown up version of a legacy character, we wove a small, but intriguing narrative over some tantalising motion graphics.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Production, Strategy
MUSIC to our ears
Into the Dead fans love the soundtrack that span both games and promotional materials, so for the figurative cherry on top, we recorded fan-favourite tracks live with our in-house audio team, and shot them as stripped back acoustic-style music videos. We set up shop in world renowned recording studio The Armoury and had cameras moving around Jason & Broghan as they performed an incredible 5-song set. Safe to say the fans absolutely loved these, as we were overwhelmed with the response in both Facebook & YouTube’s comment sections
Check out the other music videos here.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Production, Strategy
Into the beer
To commemorate the anniversary, PikPok collaborated with iconic Wellington craft brewery, Garage Project, to create an Into the Dead themed IPA. Our CEO, Mario, asked us to take some simple product shots for the brew (see the shot on the white backdrop to the left), but we knew we could also do something a little more special. With any semblance of a budget denied, and a mere few hour window approved, we sourced what props we could to create a window into (ha) the Into the Dead universe. I’m proud of the details we managed to work into this shot, even featuring the polaroid that the second game’s protagonist uses as motivation for his journey.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Production, Strategy
Key contributors:
Robin Wilson-Davey, Renee Cotton, Harriet Prebble, Jayde Marter, Jason Erskine,
Broghan Blackshaw, Madeleine Adams & members of the Into the Dead franchise dev teams.
