Escaping a Dystopian Rat Race with Droga5 and Xbox

One of Droga5’s big hopes for success at Cannes Lions 2025 is its first major campaign for Xbox, ‘Wake Up’.

Released in April and directed by Romain Chassaing via Reset, the film positions Microsoft’s gaming console as a solution to the drudgery of the 'rat race'.

The dystopian visuals draw viewers into the dingy, dank world of Squeakattle, a city inhabited by anthropomorphic rodents, showing that gaming (with an Xbox, naturally) can reawaken the human spark long-crushed by the modern routine of work and never-ending doomscroll.

To help bring the project to life, director David Fincher (‘Fight Club’, ‘Zodiac’, ‘Seven’) weighed in creatively during the treatment and storyboard process.

“David and Romain were the first directors we talked to and the synergy between us all was very tangible and exciting,” says Rubel Mercadal, co-head of production at Droga5 New York. “Their treatment was stunning and tonally aligned with what we were looking for and we were excited to collaborate with them.”

He explains that the brief from Xbox tasked the team to communicate how the brand is building an accessible future “defined by player choice,” leading them to the strategic insight for the campaign that, with the right tools, people can escape monotony by rediscovering their autonomy.

The creatives, ECDs, CCO Scott Bell, and David Droga then banded together to create the world of their protagonist, Horatio, and the story of finding his humanity in a world that can feel designed to diminish it.

“The film actualises the proverbial rat race humans live in, following our rodent hero as he navigates his daily trials and tribulations and has his inner self awakened by Xbox. By having Xbox gamers show up around the world as humans, we convey that Xbox is here to help achieve this metamorphosis.”

From the start, all parties were keen to elevate the craft of the campaign and tell the story in a fresh way – well, as fresh as a grimy, subterraneous city can be. Not to mention in a way that would resonate with the target demographic.

A big part of this was balancing the in-camera filming versus CGI. “We wanted it to be as practical as possible, to make the rat world believable,” says Ruben.

“Reset pulled out all the stops and we had an incredible production crew, including Jeff Cronenwerth as DP (‘Fight Club’, ‘The Social Network’, ‘Gone Girl’), along with gaffer Harold Skinner (‘Fight Club’, ‘Interstellar’, ‘The Social Network’), and a superb production designer, David Bersanetti, who created all of the art department elements you see in the campaign. His attention to detail was amazing.”

The production took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, working closely with B2Y Productions, which provided “NYC-esque” film back lots and world-class crews with strong art departments that were able to rapidly build multiple large scale sets. “Romain has also filmed in Sofia many times and overall it gave us the production infrastructure we were looking for,” adds Ruben. “It was great to return there for a shoot.”

The team’s initial approach was to shoot everything as practically as possible, opting for rat head masks worn by the actors, before compositing CGI rat heads in post production. “This gave us the most flexibility in terms of capturing all the head movements and action we needed.”

They partnered with post house 1920VFX to bring the CGI to life, and their R&D tests and modelling during pre-production helped shape the overall production approach. Paul Watts at Cut+Run and The Quarry helmed the edit, while Aaron Reynolds from Wave Studios developed the sound design for the rat-infested world.

“The original plan was to utilise full CG for all of the foreground rats and use prosthetic masks for the mid and background rats,” says Ruben. “But during our tech recce / camera rehearsal, it quickly became clear that our large scale sets allowed for much more dynamic performances and the prosthetic masks would not hold up in camera, as the talent moved closer to the foreground.

“This led to a full team effort between our VFX supervisors, prosthetics team, and director to shift to a full CG approach that gave us much more flexibility in how we could move the camera and block our talent.”

The result is a superbly detailed environment with surprisingly expressive humanoid animals to match, all conveying the oppressive sense of monotony that Xbox eventually alleviates by ‘waking up the human inside’ Horatio.

“With each element of our film meticulously crafted, from character design to city architecture and textural elements like ads and subway signs, our goal was to make the rat world as authentic as possible.

“Our hope is to continue amplifying Xbox's broader ambition to reach more players wherever they love to play.”