How to Create a Game Trailer on a Budget

The software for a store-ready game trailer costs nothing in 2026. OBS Studio records the footage, the free build of DaVinci Resolve cuts it, and free music catalogs supply the score. What the trailer actually costs is a weekend and a plan: which beats to record, what each store does with the video once uploaded, and the export settings that survive store processing. This guide covers all three, with prices and platform rules checked at the source in September 2026.

Two companion pieces cover the questions around this one. Overall marketing with no money is the zero-budget indie marketing guide; where the music comes from, with license terms per site, is covered in a separate roundup. This article is strictly about producing the video itself.

The short answer#

Job	Tool	Cost
Record gameplay footage	OBS Studio	Free, open source
Edit, grade, titles, audio	DaVinci Resolve (free build)	Free; Studio $295 once
Edit on weak hardware	Shotcut	Free, open source
30-second and vertical cutdowns	CapCut (Standard tier)	Free; Pro $19.99/month
Music bed	Pixabay, Mixkit, Incompetech	Free, license terms differ
Capture footage from an iPhone	QuickTime Player	Free on macOS

Two decisions follow from the table. First, the editor: DaVinci Resolve if your machine has the muscle, Shotcut if it does not. Second, the music license: if you refuse to keep a credits line, restrict yourself to CC0 and site licenses and skip CC-BY tracks entirely.

What each store actually requires#

A trailer is not one video; it is one master cut that each store treats differently.

Store	Required?	What autoplay does	Format	The rule people miss
Steam	Yes, part of the release process	Plays muted at the top of the page	MP4, MOV or WMV; H.264 + AAC; up to 1920 x 1080	The first listed trailer should be gameplay-first
Google Play	Optional, but games need one for parts of the store	Muted, up to 30 seconds, over your feature graphic	YouTube URL with ads off	80% of the video should be representative footage
App Store	Optional, up to three per language	Plays muted by default	Up to 30 seconds, device-native capture	Show more gameplay than cutscenes

Three of these rules decide how you edit. Steam's documentation notes a shopper in the Discovery Queue gives you less than 10 seconds, often with the sound off, which is why Valve recommends the first trailer be primarily gameplay from the player's perspective, HUD visible. Google Play asks for the core experience inside the first 10 seconds and for at least 80% of the video to show the real thing: title screens and cutscenes are accessories, not the content. Apple says the same in review language: previews show what the app does, captured on the device, without fingers tapping the screen.

Steam adds two mechanics worth knowing before you edit. The first two valid trailers on your page play before your screenshots, everything else lands after them. And Steam builds a 6-second microtrailer for you by stitching six 1-second clips from your first video; it cannot be customized, so a slow opening produces a bad microtrailer on sale pages you never see.

Capture with OBS Studio#

OBS Studio is free, open source, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. For a trailer you need three settings and one habit.

The settings: record at 1920 x 1080, at 60 fps, with output quality set to high. Steam takes 30 or 60 fps at up to 1080p, and 60 fps footage can always be halved later. The habit: record short takes. One ten-minute session of continuous play is nearly useless for editing, because a trailer is cut to music and needs discrete beats. Write the beat list first, then record each beat two or three times: the hook, the main mechanic, the escalation, the boss, the traversal shot that shows the world.

Record the game clean and from the player's perspective. That is not a stylistic preference; it is what both Valve and Google tell you the footage should be. If your game runs in a small window inside an editor, capture the play preview full screen. On a phone, record the screen directly: iOS captures via QuickTime with the device plugged into a Mac, current Android phones have a screen recorder built in.

Editors: what is actually free#

Editor	Price	Runs on	Best for	The catch
DaVinci Resolve	Free build; Studio $295 once	Windows, macOS, Linux	The main edit: cutting, grading, titles, audio in one project	Heavy on old laptops
Shotcut	Free, open source	Windows, macOS, Linux	Quick cuts, weak machines, built-in screen capture	The interface takes patience
CapCut	Standard tier free; Pro $19.99/month	Windows, macOS, web, mobile	30-second cutdowns and vertical crops	Some effects and AI tools are paywalled

The free build of DaVinci Resolve is not a trial. It works with virtually all 8-bit formats at resolutions up to 3840 x 2160 and 60 fps, which is far past what a 1080p trailer needs, and it includes the color, titling and audio pages in the same project. The $295 Studio version adds AI tools, 10-bit support and 120 fps, none of which a store trailer requires.

Shotcut is the fallback for weak hardware: FFmpeg-based, no import step, and it can record the screen itself if you skip OBS. CapCut's free Standard tier covers trimming, filters, transitions and text, which is enough for short cutdowns; its Pro tier costs $19.99 a month, with prices that vary by region and platform.

Cut for a muted autoplay#

On the App Store and Google Play the video starts muted; on Steam, shoppers often watch with the sound off. Either way the cut has to work in silence, and the music you picked is the second thing a shopper hears, not the first. Text cards carry the pitch: the genre in the first five seconds, the hook right after, the release window at the end. Apple's own guidance is to use copy for context because previews play muted, and Google recommends captions for the same reason.

The structure that survives all three stores:

1. The best gameplay beat you have, immediately. The first frame is gameplay, not a logo or a fade from black.
2. The genre made legible within the first 10 seconds, by footage or by a text card.
3. The escalation montage, cut to the music's structure.
4. Title, platform and wishlist or release date at the end.

Sixty to ninety seconds is the practical ceiling for the main cut. Google Play autoplays only the first 30 seconds, and attention runs out before the second minute regardless of platform.

Music without licensing trouble#

The safe sources and their terms are covered in detail in the free game audio roundup. The version for trailers: Pixabay and Mixkit music is free for commercial use with no attribution under their site licenses; Incompetech is CC-BY, meaning a credit line in the video description; anything marked NC is not legal in a store listing, which is a commercial context. One trick that costs nothing: layer the game's own sound effects under the music. Real jump and impact sounds read as gameplay even at a glance, and they come from a project you already own.

Export settings that pass#

One master export serves every store: H.264 in an MP4 container, 1920 x 1080, high bitrate. Steam asks for at least 5,000 Kbps and its own Adobe preset is 20 Mbps video with 192 Kbps stereo AAC; audio at 44.1 or 48 kHz. The Steamworks documentation names the two most common processing failures itself: exporting at an unusual resolution, and audio at an unsupported sample rate. Use 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720, and 48 kHz, and the failure cases are gone.

Google Play replays your YouTube upload, so the YouTube video inherits the master's quality; upload the high-bitrate file, not a compressed preview. The App Store wants device-native resolution, which your phone capture already is.

A working pipeline#

1. Write the beat list before recording anything. Eight beats is a full trailer: hook, three mechanics, escalation, world shot, boss or climax, title card.
2. Record each beat three times in OBS at 1080p60. Delete the takes that miss.
3. Pick the music before editing. Cutting clips to a track that already has structure is twice as fast as the reverse.
4. Assemble, add text cards, then watch the whole cut with the sound off. If the pitch survives silence, it survives autoplay.
5. Export the master: MP4, H.264, 1920 x 1080, 20 Mbps, AAC stereo 48 kHz.
6. Cut the 30-second version from the same timeline for Google Play and the App Store, and a vertical crop if you run shorts.
7. Upload to Steam days before launch, not the morning of: a game cannot release while its trailer is still encoding. Set the gameplay cut as the first video, and pick a custom thumbnail frame from it at 1920 x 1080.

Common mistakes#

Mistake	What it costs	The fix
Opening with a logo animation	The first 5 to 10 seconds gone, muted	First frame is gameplay
One long continuous recording	Beats cannot be retimed to music	Short takes per beat
Exporting at an odd resolution or sample rate	The most common Steam processing failures	1920 x 1080, 48 kHz
NC-licensed music	Not legal in a monetized store listing	CC0, site licenses, or credited CC-BY
A cut made only of cinematics	Valve asks for gameplay first; Google wants 80% representative	Gameplay carries the trailer
Trailer uploaded on launch morning	Release blocked during encoding	Upload days early
Sound checked only with the sound on	The muted autoplay case never tested	Review the cut in silence

Where Egmatic fits#

The awkward part of trailer production is that stores want gameplay footage before the game is finished. Egmatic's live preview plays the project inside the editor, so OBS can capture real gameplay months before there is a build worth shipping, and every scene change gives a new take without an export step. Egmatic is being built so the same project then reaches desktop, mobile and web without a porting phase, which means the build you eventually record for launch is the build you publish. Egmatic is in pre-alpha and the export layer is still in development, so today this works at the live-preview level. The Egmatic homepage has the current state of the project, and the Steam Direct walkthrough covers the page your trailer will live on.

Conclusion#

A trailer's price tag in 2026 is time, not software: OBS, Resolve or Shotcut, and free music add up to $0, with a weekend of editing on top. Money does not fix the failures that sink trailers, because those are structural: an opening without gameplay or a cut that dies when muted. Get the first five seconds right and the rest is a workflow. If the hook works in silence, the trailer works.

Sources#

1. Steamworks Documentation — Trailers (format specs, bitrate guidance, processing failures, microtrailers, gameplay-first recommendation)
2. Valve — Marketing Your Game on Steam, Steam Dev Days 2016 (trailer best practices talk)
3. Apple Developer — App Previews (30-second limit, muted autoplay, on-device capture guidance)
4. Google Play Console Help — Add preview assets to showcase your app (YouTube URL requirements, autoplay behavior, 80% representative footage)
5. Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve (free version capabilities, Studio $295)
6. OBS Project — obsproject.com (free, open source, H.264/AAC recording)
7. Shotcut — shotcut.org (open source editor, platform and format support)
8. CapCut — CapCut Standard vs Pro (free tier contents, Pro $19.99/month)