Dovetail Summer Direct 2025

Dovetail

Product Launch

The
Brief

Dovetail Games approached us to produce their annual Summer Direct livestream, a keynote event revealing the new Train Sim World 6 title, alongside updates on other ongoing developments.

Over the last four years we’ve supported Dovetail with developer diaries and launch content, and in 2025 the Summer Direct format continued to evolve into a one-hour livestream combining developer insights, gameplay, and feature reveals.

The goal was to create an engaging, high-energy reveal that captured the excitement of the new game while clearly communicating key features, routes, and deluxe content. This year, Dovetail wanted to merge the traditional dev diaries directly into the livestream, making them more integrated and focused on explaining game concepts and experiences, rather than simply behind-the-scenes content.

We were tasked with not only producing the livestream and accompanying dev diaries, but also creating social edits to highlight key messaging for promotion across Dovetail’s channels. Flexibility was crucial, as the game was still in development while the content was being produced, requiring quick adaptation to last-minute changes.

The Production

Having worked with Dovetail for years, we had an established understanding of the format and style.

This year’s approach built on previous iterations, maintaining the broad structure of a host-led livestream with sections dedicated to different titles, while integrating dev diaries directly into the main TSW6 reveal. We had creative freedom with the dev diaries, allowing us to craft narrative threads from raw interview footage. This included designing montages, introducing gameplay and locos visually, and creating highimpact moments for deluxe locomotives. One standout idea was building tension with black-and-white gameplay sequences, backlit reveals, and smoke effects to highlight each deluxe loco, creating clear premium moments for viewers.

The shoot was conducted over three days at Dovetail’s Chatham offices, coordinating multiple developers around their live game work. We managed logistical challenges such as changing sunlight through the office windows, teleprompter coordination for multi-speaker segments, and adapting content as the game evolved in real time.

Visually, we iterated on the established TSW style, combining a playful, mixed-media scrapbook aesthetic with the cleaner, “glass panel” branding of the livestream. Minor updates to graphics, name cards, and transitions ensured that the Direct felt fresh while retaining continuity from previous years. Post-production took two months, editing down 1.5TB of footage (over seven hours) into a one-hour livestream, three dev diaries, and shorter social edits.

Blueprint are an incredible team, able to create high-quality large scale productions with ease, and fantastic to work with - if you're in need of a video editing crew, this is the best option. We worked alongside their team in the creation of the Dovetail Direct events, amassing thousands of live viewers for shows built with hundreds of hours films condensed into an hour. The blueprint team are quick to communicate, fantastic at working through feedback, willing to be flexible with timelines, and the highlight is that they're proactively providing help, tips for people filming, and giving suggestions for video edits.

Alex Gate, Senior Community Manager

The
Outcome

The 2025 Dovetail Direct livestream was the most successful to date. It achieved:

A one-hour livestream revealing TSW6 and other updates
Three standalone dev diaries integrating gameplay and development insights
Social edits highlighting key features and moments

The livestream reached over 70,000 views, with concurrent viewers peaking at 7,700, surpassing the previous record of 4,000. The event effectively engaged the audience, communicated key product features, and showcased Dovetail’s new game in a dynamic, visually compelling way. This project exemplifies long-term collaboration, iterative design, and the ability to deliver high-quality, flexible content under tight deadlines. The mix of live interviews, gameplay, and mixed-media graphics demonstrates how careful planning and creative freedom can produce an engaging and memorable gaming reveal.