Why Dan Trachtenberg's Latest Video Game Project Is A Dream Come True

Dan Trachtenberg explains why his latest video game project is a dream come true

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We’ve seen plenty of stars from film and TV winging it when they accept a paycheque to work in video games. Even the best actors can struggle to convince us that their excitement about a project is genuine (in some cases, they don’t bother trying). Dan Trachtenberg, director of 10 Cloverfield Lane, Black Mirror episode Playtest and the pilot for Amazon anti-superhero series The Boys, does not have to pretend. For a man whose career has been informed by videogames even before No Escape – his dazzling short film based on Valve’s Portal – first brought him to Hollywood’s attention, his latest project was something of a dream gig. In fact, Trachtenberg’s new six-minute cinematic intro to Digital Extremes’ F2P shooter Warframe, unveiled at the studio’s Tennocon event in July, came about after he approached the developer rather than the other way around.

It all began when he was making 10 Cloverfield Lane. Shooting in New Orleans, Trachtenberg was looking for a way to connect with his friends back home in LA. Destiny had just released, he recalls, but it wasn’t quite doing the job. “I was complaining about games like Destiny and