Almost everyone uses Facebook, and game companies know it. While some advertise their titles with trailers that show off (mostly) accurate gameplay, others would rather partake in the age-old tradition of false advertising.
I’m not talking about trailers that display graphics destined for downgrading but videos that try to make mediocre simulation games look like the next The Witcher 3.
Recently, these ads have run rampant through Facebook and other social media platforms. The teams behind these less-than-average Facebook games do everything in their power to produce the most memorable and crazy trailers.
On the one hand, it’s hugely frustrating, on the other they’re such gross misrepresentations of the actual product it’s actually somewhat amusing. Let’s recap the best (read worst) efforts.
Insane Looking Fake Facebook Games
League of Angels
The source of basically 99.99% of social media’s false video game advertising, the team behind League of Angels tries every trick in the book. My god, do they try.
The League of Angels “series” is basically a bunch of RPGs that play themselves, so gamers can spend as much time as possible staring at sexy women in chainmail bikinis battle every sort of demon and beast. Yes, it’s the kind of game that shamelessly uses sex to sell, even though it features a few token male characters.
Of course, if you judged League of Angels by its trailers, you might assume it’s the unofficial love child of World of Warcraft and Diablo III.
These videos show off typical, fast-paced isometric ARPG action that makes even Diablo look slow and tedious. However, some ads use live-action women in their underwear who slowly equip skimpy fantasy armor, because… chainmail bikinis. If only the offensiveness stopped there.
One of the latest League of Angels trailers stars a random, pushy guy trying to ask a woman on a date. He gets rejected (with a slap), clears one dungeon, finds a chest that contains an entire set of epic armor —with a unicorn to match— and the digital trophy girlfriend falls in love with him because apparently, she’s only into rich men. Nothing says insane like a trailer that advertises treasure chest unicorns.
Insane Looking Fake Facebook Games
Mafia City
Mafia City has the funniest trailers on Facebook ever. Whoever is responsible for its videos deserves to earn more than the CEO of EA, if only because Mafia City’s ads have spawned so many memes.
Mafia City is your run-of-the-mill Game of War clone. The mobile market is swarming with these games, and they’re nothing more than Game of War with a different paint job.
Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire, the upcoming Warhammer: Chaos and Conquest, and Mafia City are the same boring simulator titles where players manage a kingdom, fend of invaders, and that’s it. However, if you judged Mafia City by its trailers, you would assume it’s more batshit insane than Katamari Damacy.
Mafia City’s advertisements are pure, concentrated, digital ADD. In one trailer, a man throws money on the ground to spawn a shack and then tosses AK-47s at the shack until it transforms into an art deco house. Another trailer features a prisoner opening an unlocked prison cell, jumping into a trash bin, and being wheeled out the prison’s entrance (which is five feet away and completely unguarded) by an oblivious guard, all of which somehow transforms the prisoner into a mafia boss.
While most of Mafia City’s trailers show off pure insanity, some are different game genres.
For example, one trailer paints the game like a card-based RPG where players summon random thugs and guard dogs Yu-Gi-Oh! style, and more than a few videos display characters trying to make tough decisions as if Mafia City is supposed to be Scarface: A Telltale Games Series.
Mafia City’s ads are pure anarchy, which is ironic since many sport the tagline “That’s How Mafia Works.” If you really want to know how the mafia actually works, go watch The Godfather.
Insane Looking Fake Facebook Games
Hero Wars
Hero Wars is your typical, generic gatcha hero RPG with auto-battling mechanics. Characters feature a generic, chibi/anime art style, and many look like they belong in different game universes. Under normal circumstances, Hero Wars would fade into obscurity, but its Facebook trailers are, for lack of a better term, unique.
As is par for the course with this list, Hero Wars’ ads misrepresent the game, but this is one of the rare situations where misleading advertisements works to the game’s advantage.
Most of Hero Wars’ trailers consist of puzzles that tease viewers with riches and damsels in distress. Each puzzle looks (and possibly is) unsolvable, but they are nothing if not memorable and unique. Unlike Mafia City’s trailers, Hero Wars’ ads actually make me want to check the game out.
Recently, Hero Wars’ ads have dropped significantly in creativity. Instead of brainteasers that I genuinely want made into a real game, the latest videos feature sliding “puzzles” where a digital hand lines up three characters to combine them into more powerful forms.
Granted, these videos display fictional gameplay that is much more engaging than the actual game, but they are completely brain-dead compared to the earlier insane deathtraps.
Insane Looking Fake Facebook Games
Legacy of Discord
If any game heaps on the sex appeal more than League of Angels, it’s Legacy of Discord.
Unlike League of Angels, Legacy of Discord is your standard, generic Diablo clone. You trek through dungeons, kill everything you find, and grind to level up pets and abilities. Rinse and repeat.
Basically, Legacy of Discord is the kind of experience gamers fear Diablo Immortal will provide. While Legacy of Discord features three classes, two of them male, the majority of its ads focuses on the women, especially the ones who aren’t in the game.
Some of Legacy of Discord’s more “memorable” trailers involve a random woman in skimpy clothing. She either stands there or walks nowhere and only serves as eye candy as she displays costumes that don’t exist in the game. As unapologetically titillating as these costumes are, they’re honestly more appealing than the overdesigned ones in the actual game.
While Legacy of Discord is a Diablo clone, many of its trailers emulate the MMORPG Aion and are designed to make gamers think they will fly through the game on wings of molten gold or ethereal crystal. Even worse, some ads tease races that don’t exist in the game.
Several trailers feature fantasy races like orc, dwarf, and elf. And humanoid panda, because of World of Warcraft’s kung-fu Pandaren race.
In the spirit of fairness, though, some of Legacy of Discord’s trailers display isometric action RPG gameplay that resembles the actual game. However, these ads are fast, frantic, and unrealistic. One features a busty, vaguely dark elf woman who jumps across rooftops and slices through enemies, while another stars a blonde sorceress who lays waste to orcs with doves made of lasers.
It’s hyped advertising that is ironically somewhat accurate, which is just insane.
Insane Looking Fake Facebook Games
The Third Age
When I search for information on the mobile game The Third Age, Google thinks I’m talking about the RPG The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. Well, Google isn’t completely wrong because The Third Age is a mobile game that uses Lord of the Rings-like art assets that just barely avoid plagiarism lawsuits.
Much like Mafia City, The Third Age is a Game of War clone, this time with a not-Lord of the Rings paint job. While the game adds some bare-bones tactical combat, it is as bare-bones as bare-bones can get.
However, if you watched the Facebook trailers, you would never guess The Third Age featured these gameplay mechanics.
The people who developed The Third Age’s Facebook ads apparently want gamers to think the title isn’t a Lord of the Rings rip-off. One trailer uses generic, 3D models and paint the game as a survival RPG where players build shelters, survive, and find love after being washed up on shore, while another trailer implies The Third Age is meant to be a hybrid war simulator/lootfest.
More importantly, the trailers don’t feature any not-Lord of the Rings art.
The Third Age’s Facebook ads aren’t insane because of ludicrous situations but because of the lengths that are taken to obfuscate the game’s true nature. There’s claiming a lazy Diablo clone is actually an epic, action-packed RPG, and then there’s claiming a game that’s Lord of the Rings in everything but name is actually an unrelated generic medieval fantasy.
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