Head of Business Development - XDEV @Blackbird Interactive | Powering Growth in the Gaming Industry | World Citizen
How do you tell a story in games? I'm curious about your thoughts. Personally, I think cinematics and cutscenes are key for drawing players in and making them feel connected. What's really got me excited lately is how seamlessly cutscenes blend with gameplay. Games like "The Last of Us Part II" and "Red Dead Redemption 2" do this seamlessly. Real-time rendering lets developers make scenes that react to what players do, making the whole game feel more alive. What moves you? #gamedevelopment #storytelling #cinematics
When The Gameplay Transitions to The Cutscene Dialogue Perfectly | Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2)
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Julien Ludwig enroll in my university course, and I will give you a thorough explanation of how to deliver a story, mon chouchou. Jokes aside, the difference between good and bad narrative is that the bad one tends to focus on telling the literal story, while the good one focuses on designing an experience using both verbal and non-verbal storytelling techniques. Both games you mentioned deliver on that, understanding that a good story is much more than words.
In the absolute best cases, the first frame of the cutscene (whether playing live or a cinematic) will match the very last frame of the preceding gameplay animation played by players. That’s when you want your immersion factor to be the pillar of the game experience. This happens primarily but not solely in first person games, where it’s easier particularly if the game is a linear experience. BioShock, Deus Ex and other narrative immersive FPS games were frequent examples of such techniques. In open world games, where the players actions can rarely be constrained to an animation that takes away players controls (There are still examples in RDR2 such as players entering the cabin with the bear inside), there is simply no way to take all camera angles into account. So you end up with a probabilistic model where designers place their scripting logic conditions according to the most likely path of the encounter. Now to think the dialogue could potentially match the last animation? Only in the first of my examples, specifically because there is only one gameplay action possible before triggering the cutscene. All other examples are just purely coincidental and could just as well have played poorly. Even with AI tools now.
I've always been a fan of interactive/in-game cutscenes, if cutscenes are used in a game. Half Life 2 springs to mind. Being able to observe or take in story moments from a first person perspective keeps me more immersed than if the game cuts to an animated cinematic scene. Even better though when I get to experience storytelling or learn important information through gameplay itself.
Founder | CEO | Chief Creative Officer at Hinterland
3moExcept…that’s not what is happening here. The RDR2 cutscene dialogue is not responding to the player having fallen down the hill. The question “Are you ok?” refers to a story moment, and would play regardless of what the player did leading up to it. In this particular instance, any sense that the cutscene is responding to the player is purely coincidental. In fact, if the game did respond to the fall, the more important story moment would be ruined!