Best AI Video Generators for Game Trailers and Cutscenes (2026)
Last updated: September 2026.
The best AI video generator for a game trailer in 2026 is Kling 3.0 if you need one character to look the same across every shot, Google Veo 3.1 if you want the most polished hosted clips with sound and can pay $0.40 a second for them, and Wan 2.2 or LTX-2.5 if you want open weights you can run yourself and use commercially. Whatever you pick, the AI footage belongs in the mood intro, the cutscenes and the social cuts, not in the part that shows what the player does. Steam's own guidance is that the first trailer should be mostly gameplay, and your distribution agreement says the game has to match its marketing.
This is the decision guide: what a trailer needs, which model fits which job, what each costs per second as of September 2026, and which licences let you ship the result. For the deep technical comparison of reference-image systems and long-form generation, read our AI video models with reference image support guide, which this one doesn't repeat.
Quick picks
- Best overall hosted: Kling 3.0 (Pro). 3 to 15 second clips at up to 1080p with native audio, a multi-shot storyboard, and the most complete character reference system. $0.168 a second with audio on fal.
- Best for character consistency across shots: Kling 3.0's element references, or Seedance 2.5 when one shot needs many references at once (up to 30 images per request).
- Best hosted quality per clip: Veo 3.1. 8 second clips at 720p, 1080p or 4K with dialogue and sound, $0.40 a second with audio, $0.15 on the Fast tier.
- Best open weights for commercial use: Wan 2.2 (Apache 2.0, no strings) for a clean licence, LTX-2.5 (LTX-2.x Community License, free under $10M revenue) for audio and 4K.
- Cheapest for volume: MiniMax H3 at $0.06 a second for 768p on fal, or Wan 3.0 at $0.05 a second for 480p drafts.
- Best for 2D and anime styles: Vidu Q3, the only major API with an explicit
style: animeswitch. For pixel art, animate real sprites instead, see the pixel art generators guide. - Best for cutscenes from your own 3D scene: render a rough pass from your engine and restyle it with Kling's video-to-video or Runway Aleph 2.0.
Quick reference
Prices are what we read on the vendor's page or on fal.ai and Runway's API price list on September 6, 2026, at the usual trailer setting (720p or 1080p, audio on where the model has it). Everything reprices often, so read the column as a ranking.
| Model | Maker | Max clip | Resolution | Reference images | Audio | Price basis | Commercial terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kling 3.0 Pro | Kuaishou | 15s | 720p, 1080p (4K in Omni editing) | Up to 7 images and elements, @Element tags | Native, lip-sync | $0.112/s, $0.168/s with audio (fal) | Paid members unrestricted, free tier must carry Kling branding |
| Veo 3.1 | 8s per generation, extendable | 720p, 1080p, 4K | Reference-to-video endpoint | Native dialogue and SFX | $0.40/s with audio, Fast $0.15/s (fal, Runway) | Paid API tier | |
| Seedance 2.5 | ByteDance | 30s | 480p, 720p, 1080p | Up to 30 images, 10 videos, 10 audio | Native | $0.30/s at 720p, $0.68/s at 1080p (Runway API) | Hosted API terms |
| Runway Gen-4.5 | Runway | 10s | Up to 1080p, HDR options | Image-to-video | Native | $0.12/s (Runway API) | Outputs unrestricted, all plans |
| Luma Ray3.2 | Luma | 10s (20s in Modify) | 540p to 1080p | Up to 16 keyframes, Character Reference | No | $0.06/s at 720p, $0.24/s at 1080p | Commercial only on a paid subscription |
| MiniMax H3 | MiniMax | 15s | 768p, 2K | Up to 9 images (Ref2VA) | Native stereo | $0.06/s at 768p, $0.13/s at 2K (fal) | Open weights, but not licensed in the US, EU, UK or Korea |
| Wan 2.2 | Alibaba | 5s (5B model) | 720p | First frame, first and last frame | No | Free, 24 GB VRAM for the 5B model | Apache 2.0 |
| Wan 3.0 | Alibaba | 30s | 480p, 720p, 1080p | Up to 10 images, 5 videos, 5 audio | Native | $0.05/s, $0.10/s, $0.20/s by resolution (fal) | Hosted API only, no weights |
| LTX-2.5 | Lightricks | Endpoint-dependent | Up to 4K | Image and multi-keyframe | Native | Free self-hosted, $0.09/s 720p and $0.13/s 1080p on fal | LTX-2.x Community License, paid above $10M revenue |
| Vidu Q3 | ShengShu | 16s | 540p, 720p, 1080p | Up to 7, @1 tags | Native | $0.10/s at 720p, $0.12/s at 1080p (Pro) | Hosted API terms |
| Sora 2 | OpenAI | 20s | 1080p | Character IDs | Native | API shuts down September 24, 2026 | Don't start here |
What a game trailer actually needs
Read what the store expects before you generate anything. Steam's trailer documentation asks for the highest resolution you have up to 1920 by 1080, 30 or 60 fps, a bitrate of 5,000 Kbps or more, and an .mp4, .mov or .wmv file. Master at 1080p and keep the 4K and 9:16 versions for YouTube and TikTok.
The same page is blunt about content: "most Steam users are looking for gameplay," and Valve recommends the first trailer on your page is primarily gameplay from the player's perspective. Each trailer gets a category. "Gameplay" means mostly footage of the game being played, while "General / Cinematic" covers a mix of pre-rendered video, logos, title screens and limited gameplay. That's where AI footage belongs, and it should be labelled that way.
There's also a promise you make when you sign up. Steam's content survey reminds you that under the Steam Distribution Agreement your game "will be consistent with your marketing materials." A cinematic that looks nothing like the game isn't against the rules, but a trailer that implies gameplay you don't have is what players punish in reviews, and AI clips are very good at looking like gameplay from a game that doesn't exist. Keep cinematic footage clearly cinematic, then cut hard to real capture.
If you've never cut a trailer before, spend forty minutes on the talk below before you open a prompt box. The AI shots only fill slots in a structure you still have to build.
The disclosure rule is narrower than people think. Steam's AI policy covers "pre-generated" content, anything that ships with your game and is consumed by players, and "live-generated" content produced while the game runs. AI cutscenes inside the build are pre-generated content and go in the survey. A trailer that only lives on your store page isn't in the game, so the survey doesn't ask, but an undeclared AI trailer next to an AI label is a bad look. Say so in the trailer description.
So where does AI video fit? The mood intro, the first five to ten seconds before the gameplay hits. Cutscenes and story beats, especially for a team with no animator. Key art in motion, a slow move on the still you already commissioned. And vertical social clips, which need volume more than fidelity. Everything else should be captured from the game. If you built it in the game creator it runs in the browser, so a screen recorder at 1080p60 is the whole capture rig.
The tools, one at a time
Google Veo 3.1
Veo 3.1 is the model for a single shot that has to look finished. It generates up to 8 seconds per call at 720p, 1080p or 4K with dialogue and sound in the same pass, takes reference images plus first and last frames, and an extension endpoint chains 7 second continuations to around two and a half minutes. On fal the Veo 3.1 endpoint is $0.20 a second silent or $0.40 with audio at 720p and 1080p, and $0.60 with audio at 4K. Veo 3.1 Fast is $0.10 silent and $0.15 with audio, and Runway's API relays the same rates. The 8 second cap suits a trailer, where shots run two to four seconds, but it makes every cutscene a stitching job.
Kling 3.0 Omni
Kling is the trailer workhorse because of its reference system. You upload a frontal photo of a character as an element, add more angles if you have them, then write @Element1 walks through the burning gate and the model puts that character in the scene rather than animating the photo. Per Kling's 3.0 Omni guide, a request takes up to 7 images and elements combined, clips run up to 15 seconds at 720p or 1080p, and a multi-shot storyboard writes several shots with their own duration and camera in one generation. On fal, Kling v3 Pro is $0.112 a second silent and $0.168 with audio, and v3 Standard is $0.084 and $0.126. Our own Video Generator runs Kling 3.0 Pro with the storyboard and up to four reference images if you'd rather skip the API setup.
Seedance 2.5
ByteDance's Seedance 2.5 is for the 30 second take in a single pass. Per the Seed team's announcement it generates up to 30 seconds per generation with multi-round extension, and takes up to 30 images, 10 video clips and 10 audio clips as references at once, so a whole cast plus a location board fits one request. Runway's API added it on August 7, 2026 at 20, 30 and 68 credits a second ($0.20, $0.30 and $0.68) for 480p, 720p and 1080p, with an 80 credit minimum. It's also on fal and on BytePlus ModelArk, where billing is per token. For a cutscene where three characters have to hold across a minute, the 30 second window halves the stitching.
Runway Gen-4.5 and Aleph
Gen-4.5 generates 2 to 10 second clips from text or an image at $0.12 a second on the API, with true HDR delivery added in August 2026. Runway's launch post claims "stylistic control spanning photorealistic to animated styles," and it does hold a stylised look better than most. Aleph 2.0 is the editing half: 2 to 30 seconds of existing video plus up to 5 keyframe images and a prompt, at 28 credits a second, the tool for turning a grey-box capture of your level into something dressed and graded. Runway's terms don't restrict commercial use of outputs or claim ownership, but do let Runway train on them. Subscriptions are $15, $35 and $95 a month for 625, 2,250 and 9,500 credits.
Luma Ray3.2
Ray3.2 is the cheap 720p option with the most keyframe control: up to 16 keyframes per clip, a Character Reference feature, a Reframe tool that re-composes 16:9 into 9:16 or 1:1, and 16-bit HDR with EXR export. API pricing is per 5 second block: $0.30 at 720p ($0.06 a second), $1.20 at 1080p, HDR doubles it. Text and image to video run 5 or 10 seconds, and the Modify video-to-video mode goes to 20. Read the terms before shipping: Luma assigns you the output, but commercial use only applies to clips "produced during an active Subscription Term under Customer's paid subscription," so free-tier clips can't go in a trailer.
MiniMax H3
MiniMax H3 replaced the Hailuo 2.x line on July 31, 2026 and sits near the top of the Artificial Analysis arena while being one of the cheapest hosted models. It generates 4 to 15 seconds at 768p or 2K with native stereo audio, and its Ref2VA mode takes up to 9 reference images. On fal, H3 is $0.05 a second at 480p, $0.06 at 768p and $0.13 at 2K. The catch is the licence on the open weights: the MiniMax H3 Community License defines its territory as worldwide "excluding the Excluded Territories," which are the EU, the UK, South Korea and the United States, and requires a "MiniMax H3" credit in any commercial product. The hosted API is a different contract, so for a Western studio H3 is a hosted model.
Wan 2.2 (open) and Wan 3.0 (API)
Wan 2.2 is the cleanest open-weights answer. The GitHub repo is Apache 2.0 and says outright that Alibaba claims no rights over generated content. The TI2V-5B model generates 5 seconds of 720p at 24 fps on a 24 GB card like an RTX 4090 in under 9 minutes, and the 14B models want 80 GB. Five seconds is a trailer shot, not a cutscene, so Wan 2.2 is for batching B-roll overnight on hardware you own. Wan 3.0, released August 2026, is a different product: hosted only, 30 second takes at up to 1080p with native audio, and a reference endpoint that takes up to 10 images, 5 videos and 5 audio tracks. On fal it's $0.05, $0.10 and $0.20 a second at 480p, 720p and 1080p, and it shares the top of the text-to-video arena. There are no Wan 3.0 weights, whatever the SEO pages say.
LTX-2.5
Lightricks' LTX-2.5 is the open-weights model with sound and 4K. The model card describes a 22B model with native audio, output up to 3840 by 2176, and native multi-shot generation that keeps one character across connected shots in a single pass. Hosted, the fal LTX-2.5 Fast endpoint is $0.09 a second at 720p, $0.13 at 1080p and $0.30 at 4K, audio included. Self-hosted, Section 2.1 of the LTX-2.x Community License grants a royalty-free licence for any purpose, "provided however, that Entities with annual revenues of at least $10,000,000" must obtain a paid commercial licence, and Section 5 says Lightricks "claims no rights in the Output you generate." For an indie studio that's free and commercial.
Vidu Q3
Vidu Q3 is here for two reasons. Its text-to-video API has a style parameter with the values general and anime, which no other model on this list exposes, and anime mode is the closest thing to a purpose-built generator for a 2D-styled game. Its reference-to-video mode takes up to 7 subject images tagged @1, @2 in the prompt, runs 3 to 16 seconds at up to 1080p, and generates speech and music from the prompt. Pricing is credits at half a cent each: Q3 Pro is $0.10 a second at 720p and $0.12 at 1080p, Q3 Turbo is $0.055 and $0.065, and off-peak rates halve that.
Sora
Don't build on it. OpenAI's deprecations page lists the Videos API and every sora-2 and sora-2-pro snapshot as discontinued on September 24, 2026, with no replacement named. Existing clips are yours to keep, but a new pipeline starts with one of the models above.
Where the leaderboard stood
We read the Artificial Analysis text-to-video arena (with audio) on September 6, 2026. Wan 3.0 and Gemini Omni Flash were tied at 1238 Elo, then fal's MiniMax H3 Max at 1235, MiniMax H3 at 1227 and Seedance 2.0 at 1222. Kling 3.0 Pro sat 10th at 1108, Veo 3.1 14th at 1091, Vidu Q3 Pro 20th and LTX-2.5 Fast 23rd. Arena rank measures blind preference on generic prompts, not how well a model holds your character across eight shots, which is why Kling ranks mid-table there and first here.
Workflow: from your game to a finished trailer
Here's the shape we're building toward, with the eight AI shots from the cost example below slotted into a 60-second cut.
Start from your own frames. The best input for image-to-video is a still that already looks like your game. Screenshot at the highest quality your engine offers, or render a hero frame with the lighting pushed further than you'd ship. If the scene doesn't exist yet, generate concept art at the aspect ratio you'll cut in, and mind the input limits (Kling rejects images under 300 pixels on a side). For an environment shot, a 360° panorama from the Skybox Generator is a clean backdrop for a slow pan.
Lock the character before you animate. Every reference system wants a clean, front-facing, evenly lit image, and most accept extra angles. Make that turnaround first and reuse the exact same files for every shot. If your character is a 3D model, render the turnaround from the asset, since a real render beats any generated still, and a mesh from the 3D generator gives you an orbitable source in minutes.
Generate short and generate several. Trailer shots are two to four seconds on screen. Ask for 5 seconds, keep the best two, and expect three or four takes per shot. Write camera moves into the prompt ("slow dolly in", "handheld tracking shot from the left") so the editor has motion to cut on. Generate silent unless the sound is the point, since you'll replace it with your score and silent is 30 to 50 percent cheaper on Veo and Kling.
Restyle your own captures instead of inventing shots. For a cutscene, block the scene in your engine with correct camera work and timing, record it, and push the recording through a video-to-video mode. Kling's edit mode takes 3 to 10 second source clips with element references, Aleph 2.0 takes up to 30 seconds with keyframes, Luma Modify takes 20. The engine gives you the staging AI can't be trusted with, and the model gives you the lighting you couldn't afford. The deep dive covers this render-low, transform-high approach at length.
Upscale and re-time. Most hosted output is 720p or 1080p at 24 or 25 fps. Steam wants 1080p at 30 or 60, and YouTube rewards 4K. Topaz Video upscales to 4K and 8K and interpolates to 60 or 120 fps at $299 a year on its current price list, and DaVinci Resolve's free tier does competent upscaling and retiming. Never interpolate real gameplay to 60 unless you captured it at 60.
Cut to music, then caption, then go vertical. Pick the track first and cut on its hits, because AI shots have no rhythm of their own. The AI music generators guide covers scoring with commercial licences. Burn in captions for any dialogue, since most social video plays muted. Then make the 9:16 version: regenerate key shots vertical (Veo and Vidu both take 9:16) or use Luma Reframe to re-compose the horizontal cut. Don't just crop.
Licensing: what you can ship
The open-weights picture is simple if you read the licences instead of the headlines. Wan 2.2 is Apache 2.0 with an explicit statement that Alibaba claims no rights over generated content. LTX-2.5 is free for any purpose below $10M annual revenue and disclaims rights in outputs, with a paid licence above that line. MiniMax H3's weights are not licensed for use in the US, EU, UK or South Korea and require a "MiniMax H3" credit elsewhere, so treat it as hosted unless you're in a covered territory. Older Hunyuan and CogVideoX releases carry their own community licences with use caps, which is why they're not in the table.
Hosted tools mostly let you use what you paid for. Kling's paid service terms say members' commercial use of outputs "is not restricted," while free users must keep the Kling watermark or state that the result was generated by Kling AI. Runway doesn't claim outputs and doesn't restrict commercial use on any plan, but reserves the right to train on them. Luma assigns you the rights only for clips made during a paid subscription. Veo, Seedance, Wan 3.0 and Vidu are governed by their API terms, so read them before launch. In every case, keep the generation records: prompt, model, date and account. If a rights question comes up after launch, that log is the answer.
One more thing that isn't a licence but behaves like one: AI video with no human authorship has weak or no copyright protection in the US and several other jurisdictions. A competitor can lift your AI cutscene with little recourse. Your gameplay footage, your music and your edit are protected. Lean on those.
What a 60-second trailer costs
Take a typical structure: eight AI shots making up the mood intro and a couple of story beats, with the rest captured gameplay. Eight shots at 7.5 seconds is 60 seconds of generated footage, and you should budget three takes per shot, so 180 seconds generated. Here's the bill at the prices verified above, at 1080p where the model offers it and audio off where it's a toggle.
| Model | Price per second | 60s (one take) | 180s (three takes) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Veo 3.1 (silent) | $0.20 | $12.00 | $36.00 |
| Veo 3.1 (with audio) | $0.40 | $24.00 | $72.00 |
| Veo 3.1 Fast (with audio) | $0.15 | $9.00 | $27.00 |
| Kling 3.0 Pro (silent) | $0.112 | $6.72 | $20.16 |
| Kling 3.0 Pro (with audio) | $0.168 | $10.08 | $30.24 |
| Seedance 2.5, 1080p (Runway API) | $0.68 | $40.80 | $122.40 |
| Seedance 2.5, 720p (Runway API) | $0.30 | $18.00 | $54.00 |
| Runway Gen-4.5 | $0.12 | $7.20 | $21.60 |
| Wan 3.0, 1080p | $0.20 | $12.00 | $36.00 |
| Vidu Q3 Pro, 1080p | $0.12 | $7.20 | $21.60 |
| LTX-2.5 Fast, 1080p (fal) | $0.13 | $7.80 | $23.40 |
| Luma Ray3.2, 720p | $0.06 | $3.60 | $10.80 |
| MiniMax H3, 768p | $0.06 | $3.60 | $10.80 |
| Wan 2.2, self-hosted | electricity | $0 | $0 |
The generated portion of a trailer costs less than an hour of a freelance motion designer on every model here, and the spread between models is small enough that you should pick on consistency and look, not price. The exception is finishing, where a Topaz licence costs more than all the generation combined, so upscale in Resolve unless you're shipping 4K to a platform that rewards it.
Common Questions
What is the best AI video generator for a game trailer?
Kling 3.0 for most indie trailers, because its element references keep a character consistent across shots and its storyboard mode writes several shots in one call. Veo 3.1 gives the most finished single shots with sound at about twice the price. Use either for the cinematic intro and story beats, and capture the gameplay from the real game.
Can I make a whole game trailer with AI?
You can generate every frame, but you shouldn't. Steam's trailer guidance says most users are looking for gameplay and recommends the first trailer be primarily gameplay, and your distribution agreement requires the game to be consistent with its marketing. Use AI for the mood intro, cutscenes and social cuts, then cut to real capture at 1080p, 30 or 60 fps, for the rest.
Is there an AI cutscene generator?
Not as a single product, but Seedance 2.5 (30 second takes, up to 30 reference images), Kling 3.0 (15 second multi-shot storyboards) and Wan 3.0 (30 second takes) are the closest. The reliable route to a long cutscene is to block it in your engine, record it, and run the recording through a video-to-video mode like Kling's edit mode or Runway Aleph 2.0, so the staging is yours and only the look is generated.
Which open source video model can I use commercially?
Wan 2.2 is Apache 2.0 with no revenue caps and an explicit statement that Alibaba claims no rights over outputs. LTX-2.5 is free for commercial use under $10M annual revenue and disclaims rights in outputs. MiniMax H3's weights exclude the US, EU, UK and South Korea, so use it through a hosted API there. Wan 3.0 and Veo have no downloadable weights.
How do I keep a game character consistent across AI video shots?
Use a model with true reference support and feed it the same frontal image and angle shots in every request. Kling's @Element references, Vidu's @1 tags, Seedance 2.5's 30-image reference list and MiniMax H3's Ref2VA all do this. Render the turnaround from your actual 3D character if you have one, since a real render beats any generated still.
Do I have to disclose an AI trailer on Steam?
Steam's AI disclosure covers content that ships with the game and is consumed by players (pre-generated) and content generated at runtime (live-generated). An AI cutscene inside the build is pre-generated content and goes in the content survey. A store-page trailer isn't in the build, so the survey doesn't ask, but if the game carries an AI label it's wise to say so in the trailer description too.
Related
- Best AI Video Models with Reference Image Support: the deep technical comparison this guide points to
- How to Promote an Indie Game With No Budget: where the trailer goes once you've cut it
- Steam Next Fest Strategy: the data on demos, wishlists and trailer timing
- Best AI Music Generators for Games: the track you cut the trailer to
- Best AI Pixel Art and Sprite Generators: animate real sprites for a 2D trailer
- Video Generator: Kling 3.0 Pro with storyboard and reference images, in the browser