Why Wipeout is the best branded video game ever created
In 1995, no other video game went as deep into its branded world as Wipeout. In this clip from You’re Not the Audience, Parliament Creative Director Calvin Ross Carl makes the case for the PlayStation racing game as the best brand world ever, built through corporate aesthetics, cultural remixing, and subvertising. He explains how it became the first game to use commercial design and branding as a storytelling technique, how its soundtrack did for UK rave and techno what Tony Hawk did for punk, and why developer Psygnosis took a huge swing by hiring The Designers Republic. It’s from the You’re Not the Audience episode on Wipeout and The Designers Republic, The Best Brand World Ever Is a Video Game.
Watch the full episode
Outline
Summary
Calvin Ross Carl introduces Wipeout, the 1995 PlayStation racing game that created an insanely deep futuristic world through corporate aesthetics, cultural remixing, and subvertising. Nothing else at the time went as deep into its branded world, and it became the standard for branded worlds in video games.
He connects it to the previous episode’s lesson: look beyond the walls of your organization, dig into a subculture, and infuse its stories and grit into your brand. Wipeout fused racing with the UK rave and techno scene, and bands like the Chemical Brothers, the Prodigy, Orbital, and Leftfield shaped the soundtrack and the game’s whole atmosphere.
Calvin argues it was the first video game to use commercial design and branding as a narrative tool, at a time when game branding stopped at the cover and title screen. He credits developer Psygnosis for bringing in The Designers Republic to do the branding.
Highlights
Wipeout set the standard for branded worlds in video games.
Every aspect, from race types to teams, was branded.
The US release was renamed Wipeout XL out of fear Americans wouldn’t get the title.
The soundtrack introduced many people to UK rave and techno.
Hiring The Designers Republic was a big swing for Psygnosis.
Key insights
Borrow history from a subculture
A brand can adopt lore and grit it doesn’t have by merging with a subculture, the way Wipeout absorbed the UK rave scene.
Branding can be the story
Wipeout treated identity work as a narrative tool rather than packaging, which made the whole game feel like an invented alternate future.
Specificity creates belonging
The level of detail in every element is what let players find themselves in the world, even if that world was a version of a capitalist hellscape.
The right partner is a strategic choice
Choosing an unconventional branding agency over a safe one was part of what made Wipeout distinct.
Detailed analysis
The clip is part history lesson and part argument. Calvin admits the title is a little clickbaity, but his case rests on firsts: the first game to build its world through branding, and one of the first to make a soundtrack central to its identity.
He also notes that the ‘90s techno UK rave look Wipeout helped define, sometimes called Vector Heart or Metal Heart, is having another moment, making its lessons timely for brands today.
Conclusion
Wipeout wasn’t just a game or a brand. It felt like a completely invented future, and that depth is why Calvin still calls it the best brand world ever.
Transcript
All right, let’s talk about why I think Wipeout is the best brand world ever. Little bit of a clickbait title today, but you know, it’s the internet, what can you do? Okay, so step back. Today I want to talk about the 1995 PlayStation video game—it was on a lot of other things, I think it was even on the Sega Saturn—a game called Wipeout. It’s a racing game. At the time it was like the fastest, most intense racing game to ever exist. It was 1995, PlayStation 1, with its low-poly, low-pixel aesthetic. Looks awesome. And Wipeout was really special because it created this insanely deep futuristic sci-fi world through the use of corporate aesthetics, a lot of cultural remixing and appropriating, and a lot of subvertising—which I’ll talk about subvertising later and what that is.
And just at the time, there was nothing like it. There was nothing that went as deep into its branded world. No other game went as deep into that world as they did. And it kind of then became the standard for how to do branded worlds in video games. And I just think it was really unique.
And why that’s important is, you know, last week—this is kind of an extension of last week’s episode where we talked a lot about how to move beyond basic brand building. It’s kind of helpful to look beyond just the walls of your organization or your brand and really look deep into a subculture, find history, find lore, and find ways to infuse the stories and grit of that subculture and its spirit into the core of your brand. So that’s a really good way to remix and adopt some kind of history that might not actually exist in the brand that you’re doing—it’s like, see how you merge it with something else.
And so yeah, like I said, the title is a little bit clickbaity. Best brand ever, or best brand world ever, maybe. I don’t know. For me, it was really important because I was 10 years old in 1995 and I just remember nothing else looking like it. And this game and the design agency behind it were kind of like the vanguard and thought leaders behind this look, this ’90s techno UK rave look that is now having another moment in the light right now. It’s definitely come back. And the thing that I think they did really well, which was unique for the time, was it wasn’t just a brand, it wasn’t just a game. It felt like it completely invented an alternate history (well, I guess an alternate future), and the way it remixed culture.
Yeah, chat—all hail the Republic. Yep, we’ll talk about The Designers Republic in just a second. The Designers Republic was the agency behind the look, and they’re incredible. They’re still around. They’ve been around for like 40 years. And I think what’s really unique to keep in mind during this is the level of specificity they went into in every detail throughout the brand for just this racing game. That’s what actually made us fall in love with it. So it might just be a futuristic version of our current capitalist hellscape, but they went into so much detail we’re able to find ourselves and belong in it.
So all right, what is Wipeout? Let me switch over here. For anyone who doesn’t know, this is Wipeout. This is the cover for the PlayStation game just called Wipeout. This is the sequel, Wipeout 2097. Fun story about the title for 2097: in the US it was actually called Wipeout XL, because the game publishing company was afraid that Americans would be too stupid to understand that 2097 was the sequel, and so they called it XL instead. Good. Good job, America.
So Wipeout was a racing game, this futuristic high-speed racing game. And here, I’ll just play this. This gives you a complete idea of the aesthetic. Every single aspect of it was branded. The race type, the teams, their factions—everything had this level of branding added into it. But the thing that was really unique about it was—what did I say? TBH. He wasn’t wrong. No, he wasn’t wrong. So the big thing that was really unique about this game specifically was how much it took from the UK rave scene and techno scene, and they actually—all those bands actually showed up on the soundtrack for this game. The soundtrack was like the defining atmosphere and direction for everything.
See, this is—you’re seeing video now of what the game actually looked like. I think this is actually Wipeout XL, or 2097. This came out in 1996, 1997, and so it looks a little bit nicer than the first one. So you know, you’ve got bands in here like the Chemical Brothers, the Prodigy, Orbital, Leftfield—all these really essential bands that then blew up. And this game was kind of what brought a lot of that music to the masses for a lot of people. And it uses this aesthetic that just fuses a lot of visual noise with negative space in a really nice way.
Already Lone Archivist said in the chat that this style is often referred to as Vector Heart, or it’s also called Metal Heart, but to me it’s just The Designers Republic style. And I’ll show you some Designers Republic work in just a minute more.
So why do I think this is some of the best brand work ever? I mean, in the game space, this was really—Wipeout was the first video game to use commercial design and branding as a narrative tool and a storytelling technique. No one had really done this before. Branding and identity work in video games was just for the cover and the title screen that you press start on, basically. Everything else was just—then you’re in the game and that branding world has been left behind. But then another reason why I think it’s one of the best is that music aspect—they really leaned into the soundtrack, and it was designed from the ground up to embody the music of the UK rave and techno scene. And I think it really did for rave and techno music what Tony Hawk did for punk for a lot of people. That was a lot of people’s first introduction to punk music, which is wild, but I love it. Everyone remembers that soundtrack.
And the company that created Wipeout, Psygnosis—I think they took a really huge swing by bringing in this company called The Designers Republic to do the branding for it. That was even a unique thing on its own, to bring in that type of branding company. So let’s talk through some of the history of Wipeout, because I think that’s also why I think this brand is so good and unique, because nobody was doing what they did at this time, this kind of branding.