Has anybody seen this thing? I'm not sure I've had this visceral a negative reaction to a commercial before in my life. Is this going to be the routine for EVERY Microsoft ad from here until eternity?

The thing that's most egregious, I think, is that when this technique is pulled off "properly", the creepy cover of the song, in this case Come As You Are by Nirvana, is supposed to juxtapose with the footage to create a third meaning that informs about the product. In design school the assignment was called "1+1=3". Here, the audio just doesn't in any way match the context of the footage or the theme of the game.

A potentially successful use of the technique is something the trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane, in which a creepy version of "I think We're Alone Now" plays against footage of a happy family situation that proceeds to get more disturbing as the trailer continues and then finishes with the suggestion that there is a monster lurking outside, which makes the song usage ironic.

MS using the Nirvana cover just feels lazy. "Let's take a popular Generation X song, try to sing it creepy and then show some pictures of the game. Which game are we doing this for anyways, I forget.."

Let's just go back the 90s era of game advertisements with a wild pack of multicultural children running through the sewers with some game we're to assume they just stole from the developers so that they can play it in their abandoned warehouse command center.

Looks like somebody bought a drum machine. *groan*

@bananasfoster: I think the connection you're missing with the song choice is the lyric 'Take your time, hurry up' which certainly relates to the main character's powers in the game. That being said, still not a great ad.

Someone's been watching all the stupid christmas supermarket ads we get in the UK, Take well liked 90's or 2000's rock song, add whiney female vocal and voila, you have a shitty ad that people will be talking about for weeks.

Looking forward to the game but damn that cover is awful and out of the place.

There are a lot of these commercials with covers and one weird bit is they usually use like one line from the song but the rest is just some bit of the melody or something.

Yeah not a great one.

You're right. I did miss that connection. It doesn't make me like it anymore, but it does make it less arbitrary...

They could have had so much fun using a bunch of "time"-related songs. "Time Is On My Side" by the Stones, "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher... all done in that same style they used here. Would have been perfect for that "super self-serious but also with tongue planted firmly in cheek" Remedy formula.

It could be better but I think it's fine. Most trailers are bad.

@shagge: I like your Time Is On My Side suggestion (makes me think of the movie Fallen too), and I'll raise you Pink Floyd's Time (especially the intro bit right after the clocks). Fair chance Roger Waters would've told them to bugger off though.

Is this game just infamous second son, except with time powers and not open world?

Should have used this one.

Looks like the cover at the end of Infamous: Second Son has been surpassed.