Early June always brings out major gaming news. Unlike most years, however, Netflix got in on the fun with Netflix Geeked. As Netflix has recently leaned into more and more “geeked” inspired content, they’ve started giving said content special spotlights. However, that spotlight had some issues on Friday. If you missed Day Five, you only missed a weak exit.
Show Us, Don’t Tell Us
Netflix Geeked did not know how to generate hype and buzz. Most announcements today were just announcements or creators talking about their projects. We were told about upcoming Far Cry shows from Netflix and how they came to be. Splinter Cell gave us a shot of Sam Fisher, but no clips.
Castlevania even went as far as showing a trailer for its final season…which debuted last season. This was their lead-in to announce the details of the Castlevania spinoff. Those details also left a major timeline question that had to be answered off-screen, which is not a good conversation you want to have on your announcement date.
One of the few times Netflix Geeked did show something failed to live up to expectations. Our first look at The Witcher Season Two was brief, and not a full trailer. This was especially disappointing because we knew we would get a trailer, and this felt like the bare minimum.
That piques our interest, but it doesn’t generate hype. To generate hype, you need moments for fans to latch onto. Look at the Battlefield 2042 trailer; the most talked-about moment was the “rendezook” because that started as a fan moment. We didn’t have moments to latch onto during most of Netflix Geeked.
Splinter Cell comes from John Wick creator, Derek Kolstad’s, mind. Netflix 2021
Netflix Geeked Failed to Create Equally Exciting Moments
Two of the more exciting announcements got wildly different results. The Cuphead show announced Wayne Brady of Whose Line is it Anyway and Let’s Make a Deal plays King Dice. Cuphead’s announcement was quick and impactful. Conversely, the upcoming Resident Evil show announced Lance Reddick will play Wesker. That announcement was teased throughout the show…with Lance Reddick narrating over Umbrella Corp. “ads” with “#whoiswesker” shown multiple times.
Let’s look at Wayne Brady. His announcement was sixty seconds at most, but it delivered its message concisely. More to that point, we also got a taste of Cuphead’s animation in a quick clip. That brief moment in this show was exciting. Meanwhile, the build to Lance Reddick killed the excitement. When you have a well-known actor narrating over spaces that heavily point towards a major character, you can put two and two together.
Netflix Geeked’s actual announcements were pretty exciting, but its delivery was uneven at best.
Arcane was the One Legitimately Well Done Reveal
Arcane was the best showing from Day Five. Netflix 2021
League of Legends fans won the biggest today. Arcane is a Netflix, digitally animated show about League of Legends champions. Like The Witcher, we got a short compilation of clips from the show. However, we also got one extended clip where Jinx, a blue-haired champion, had an emotional training session with a boxing machine.
That was good content, that’s what the fans came to see. Unfortunately, Arcane was the exception to the rule, not the standard. Having it first also set such a high bar for everything else to match that nobody else did.
