How have cutscenes in games changed over the years and how will they continue to develop

I decided to have a look at the development of cutscenes in video games to try and show the latest way in which pre-rendered video game cutscenes are produced as they are my favourite types of cutscenes and I would like to get into this field of the video game industry when I am older. I believe that the way in which cutscenes have developed over the years is extraordinary and they will only get better in the future with the use of new and improved technologies. I believe that eventually the quality of pre-rendered cutscenes will be able to be used within the gameplay of a game itself with the use of motion capture.

I have decided to look at the question ‘how have cutscenes in games changed over the years and how will they continue to develop?” I think that this is a very important part of today’s world as the video game industry has grown to be so massive in the past few years, it has even taken over the film industry. I want to look at how cutscenes, the animated movie clips that play during specific points of a game to help develop and understand the story for the audience have helped the industry to grow massively. Cutscenes play throughout a game in order to explain the story to the player and are normally done similar to how a movie plays out where the player has to watch to understand what is happening and then after the cutscene they can continue playing a game, however some cutscenes are interactive and allow players to press buttons or commands during them to help determine the cutscene outcome. I believe that the cutscenes are one of the key aspects that really drive the game forward as they allow us to understand what the game is truly about and it turns the game into more of a movie within a game, possibly why the games industry has outgrown the film industry. The quality of cutscenes has vastly changed over the years of video games and new technologies have been incorporated in the creation of them to give a better overall look and effect of the game as a whole. I am going to be looking at the way cutscenes have developed and how different they are compared to when cutscenes were first introduced in the video game industry.

Cutscenes have changed greatly over the years and were first introduced in the hit video game ‘Space Invaders Part II’ in which at the end of each level, the last invader would fly off and send an SOS message. (Source 1) This was the first time anyone had ever seen anything like this in a video game and it was what triggered the video game industry to include these story-driving factors in video games. Despite this being a cutscene, it was very basic and the graphics were far from how amazing they are today. In 1981, ‘Donkey Kong’ really initiated the idea of using cutscenes to drive a story by creating a game with mini movies intertwined within the gameplay to allow the audience to understand exactly what they are playing throughout the game. Donkey Kong included a short pixelated clip at the start of each level that would show Donkey Kong carrying the princess up the level and trapping her at the top, showing the audience the objective they had to reach when they started to play the game themselves. (Source 2).

Cutscene from Space Invaders II (Source 13) and Donkey Kong (Source 14)

Donkey Kong was made with pixels which are individually drawn coloured squares that are grouped together to form an image. This was the first major way of creating video games yet Donkey Kong was the first to use pixels in order to create a cutscene. Other games have followed on from this, for example the Pokemon game series. The first Pokemon games, Red and Blue came out in 1994 and they were created with greyscale pixels that would put the player through a vast environment in order to capture and train monsters, known as Pokemon. Since then, a large amount of Pokemon games have been produced and they have greatly changed since the original Pokemon games. The latest games, Black and White feature the same pixel graphics used in the original Red and Blue games however, they are much more advanced. The pixel sizes have been reduced to allow for more detail to be added to the game and colour is also vastly in use, the Pokemon sprites (pixels of the characters) even move during battle sequences. (Source 3)  Pokemon isn’t very well known for having a great amount of cutscenes but it does have some flashy screens that play upon the player entering a battle.

Changes from Pokemon cutscenes from Red (1994) (Source 15) to Black (2011) (Source 16)

Despite these pixel games being known for their ‘cutscenes’, it wasn’t until newer games came that cutscenes really started to get serious in games. In 1995, the video game ‘Command and Conquer’ was released and this was a major step up in the video games industry as it featured some of the first live-action cutscenes. (source 4) Live-action cutscenes were filmed with real actors placed in sets or on green screens with backgrounds added through the use of a chroma key (manipulating the actors onto a different background by cutting out the green around them). These live-action cutscenes were incredible and new as they allowed the characters in the game to actually interact with the player by talking to them in order to give them mission briefs.

Command and Conquer live-action cutscene (Source 17)

After the use of pixels, 3D graphics took the main stage and this began properly when consoles such as the Playstation were released. Games on the Playstation were all created with the use of 3D rendered graphics and this was a big step up in the gaming industry. Since then mainstream console games have been produced using 3D graphics that have drastically improved over the past years. New technologies have allowed for newer types of cutscenes to envelop that have blown people away in many cases.

The game ‘Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune’ released in 2007 was one of the first major Playstation 3 games and it introduced one of the new types of cutscenes known as interactive cutscenes in which the player would have to press specific buttons during a cutscene to decide how the cutscene would play out. (Source 5) This has since been used in a number of other games and there has since been games that play out entirely like this such as Heavy Rain. Drake’s Fortune also saw the use of major film production technology, motion capture. (Source 6) This was used in films such as ‘The Polar Express’ and it is when actors wear a special suit that pinpoints joints on the body and they act out a scene which is filmed with motion capture cameras and then 3D textures are applied over the film in order to create a cutscene. This was a significant step forward in the video game industry as it showed a cutscene that was rendered with perfect realistic movement. In 2011 the game ‘LA Noire’ took motion capture to the next level and used it to pinpoint facial movement and released the game with perfectly captured faces that replicated the actors exact movements and expressions of faces, even going as far as being able to recreate exactly what the actor’s face looked like. (Source 7)

Facial motion capture in LA Noire (Source 18) and motion capture in Uncharted (Source 19)

Games these days include either one of two cutscenes; pre-rendered or real time. Pre-rendered cutscenes are ones that have been recorded previously and play throughout the game whilst stopping the player from being able to interact with the game and just having to watch what was happening. (Source 9) Real time cutscenes are those in which a recorded sequence plays out that helps to drive the story but the player can still interact with the cutscene such as being able to change camera angles or walk around (however this means that there is limited movement for the player). (Source 10)

Pre-rendered cutscene from Final Fantasy (Source 20) and real-time cutscene from Assassin’s Creed (Source 21)

It has been in debate as to whether interactive cutscenes are good to include in a video game. Some people have stated that they are good as they get the player more involved in the game and games such as Heavy Rain make good use of these as they can determine the game outcome solely by pressing buttons. On the other hand, some people have actually complained about that by stating that if buttons are missed and it changed the outcome of the game then this can be very annoying and can ruin the game for some people. It is also said that sometimes players will anticipate interactive cutscenes so will be constantly watching out for them during a cutscene and may miss a crucial part of it by looking for buttons instead. (Source 8)

An interactive cutscene from Shenmue City (Source 22)

There are many arguments as to whether real time or pre-rendered cutscenes are better and many people have different opinions on this. A lot of people have stated that pre-rendered cutscenes are much better than real-time as they allow for much better graphics which can really stand out in a game and the player won’t have to worry about the frame rate dropping and causing the game to lag as the cutscene is already recorded and doesn’t need time to load. Some people on the other hand though state that real-time is better for cutscenes because, despite the less-defined graphics, the use of pre-rendered cutscenes greatly increases the amount of space a game will take up and the more pre-rendered cutscenes a game has, the larger the game would be, making it difficult for companies to actually produce their games. It is also more expensive and better technology is needed to produce pre-rendered cutscenes so it is better for smaller companies to produce real time cutscenes. (Source 11)

Famous film director and avid video gamer Steven Spielberg has actually criticised cutscenes for being “intrusive, and feels making story flow naturally into the gameplay is a challenge for future game developers.” (Source 12)  This shows that in actual fact, not all people agree with cutscenes as they are seen to be more film-themed and the use of them in a video game defeats the point of an interactive game that you can play. This is most likely because of how the game industry is taking over the film industry and a massive film producer such as Spielberg and many other film producers may feel threatened by this. Cutscenes are becoming so important that they are intertwined within some games and span out for as long as an actual movie (Uncharted 2’s cutscenes totaled to two hours, the time of a feature length film) so the fact that a game includes a movie within them is what the real threat to the film industry is as you can watch a movie within playing a game and people tend to find this more entertaining and beneficial.

I enjoy pre-rendered cutscenes the most because of the beauty in which the graphics have been displayed throughout many games I have played with these specific cutscenes and I think it is much more easy to follow a story with the use of pre-rendered cutscenes as opposed to real-time or interactive ones as you have to control your character at the same time as watching the cutscene which could result in missing something of great importance during it. I prefer the use of graphics instead of live-action in cutscenes as I feel live-action is too close to the film industry and I want to differentiate the film and game industry from each other as I believe they are extremely different.

Some people say that pre-rendered cutscenes will be completely phased out as they take up too much money and space on the disk once it is released and that real-time cutscenes are the way of the future but I disagree with this. I believe that if pre-rendered cutscenes cease to exist then the expressions and emotions of characters will be much more difficult to follow as you cannot always get a clear shot of a character’s face in a real-time cutscene as the camera sometimes focuses on the player character instead which would mean that there was less emotion played throughout cutscenes.

I also disagree with Steven Spielberg’s statement that cutscenes ruin games. I believe that this is because he is a film director so he feels that his major industry may be threatened with the use of drastically improved cutscenes. I believe that cutscenes are what actually drive the game and allows the player to understand the story properly and to show a development of character as well as allowing the audience to sympathise and understand characters better throughout the use of more movie-like cutscenes.

I did a lot of research into the production of cutscenes and how they are developed and saw that the later technologies are the better ones such as motion capture as it produced the most realistic and precise movements and therefore is definitely a technology that I think will be used greatly in the future for the better production of more advanced cutscenes.

In conclusion I believe that I now know more about the video game industry as a whole so I have a better interpretation of what may happen to it in the future and I also have a better knowledge of the amounts of different cutscenes and how they have progressed over the years. I am thoroughly looking forward to seeing how they progress further in the future and hope that I will one day be able to help in the making of the next generation of cutscenes.

Source number	Source	Comments
Source 1	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Invaders_Part_II#Remakes_and_sequels - information on the Space Invaders II cutscene.	One of the first ever cutscenes was seen in Space Invaders II and was incredibly simple. Despite being from Wikipedia which anyone can edit, this is a reliable source as it shows a clear example of exactly what the cutscene was like,
Source 2	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhFV5-qbbIw - Cutscene from Donkey Kong.	A video showing the actual cutscene from Donkey Kong which was an improvement from the Space Invaders II cutscene but still no where near as advanced as today’s cutscenes.
Source 3	http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_sprites,_art_evolve_over_the_years - Pokemon sprite changes in Pixels.	A website showing how the Pokemon pixels have changed over the years, from the very first Pokemon pixels in 1994 to today’s pixels, showing the drastic improvements and changes of them.
Source 4	http://www.giantbomb.com/command-conquer/61-4384/ - Command and Conquer, example of Live-Action cutscenes	One of the very first live action cutscenes that show how cutscenes could be created with real actors and still be placed in a game.
Source 5	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roSiT9mObGY - Uncharted boss fight, example of interactive cutscenes.	An example of an interactive cutscene in which the player can actually interact with the cutscene and change its outcome by pressing buttons.
Source 6	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q85oLXXkxmE - making of uncharted and example of motion capture.	Example video of how motion capture is made in which actors wear suits and act out cutscenes and then these are rendered with graphics.
Source 7	(Source 8) http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/17/l-a-noires-amazing-motionscan-facial-capture-system-demonstrat/ - La Noire, example of facial Motion Capture.	An example of how facial motion capture is done, in which actors faces are placed directly onto their characters in the cutscene in order to create very realistic expressions.
Source 8	http://www.amazon.com/forum/action%20game?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx3V2BU0EU5S6TW&cdThread=Tx2ORTMYRTW4V30 - Interactive debate.	Debate as to whether or not interactive cutscenes, in which players can interact with a cutscene by pressing buttons should be included in games.
Source 9	(Source 10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3f91_5kQE0 - example of a pre-rendered cutscene.	An example of a pre-rendered cutscene in which a cutscene plays out like a movie and the player has no control over what happens.
Source 10	(Source 11) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr-d5lUN9Lk - Example of a real time cutscene.	Example of a real time cutscene in which players can interact with the cutscene such as being able to walk around.
Source 11	(Source 12) http://blenderartists.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-231779.html?s=5fa0b747a94b1e764a265e61f8b73a01 - Pre-rendered vs Real Time debate.	Debate as to whether real-time or pre-rendered cutscenes are the best way forward for future cutscenes.
Source 12	(Source 13) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutscene - Steven Spielberg quote on his idea of no cutscenes.	A quote from Steven Spielberg stating his opinion on cutscenes.
Source 13	(Source 13) http://www.atariage.com/2600/screenshots/s_SpaceInvaders_2.png - Image of a cutscene from Space Invaders	An image showing what the cutscenes were like in Space Invaders. Incredibly pixelated and simple.
Source 14	(Source 14) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhFV5-qbbIw – Video of a cutscene from Donkey Kong	An image showing what cutscenes in Donkey Kong were like. Similar to Space Invaders, they were simple, pixelated and also very short.
Source 15	(Source 15) http://www.itchythumbs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Pokemon-Battle.jpg - Image of a battle in Pokemon Red	An image showing how the battle cutscenes looked in Pokemon Red. No colours and massive pixels were used.
Source 16	(Source 16) http://tauri33gameblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Pokemon-Black-and-White-screenshot.jpg - Image of a battle in Pokemon Black	An example of a later Pokemon game, Black. A vast improvement from Red with colours, movement and tiny pixels.
Source 17	(Source 17) http://www.ryansgoblog.com/images/kane_command_conquer.jpg - Image of a live action cutscene in Command and Conquer	An image from a live cutscene in Command and Conquer where real people were filmed to make the cutscenes.
Source 18	(Source 18) http://www.theurbanshogun.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/la-noire-tech4.jpg - Image of facial motion capture used in LA Noire	An image of how facial motion capture was done in LA Noire. Very extensive technology that allowed the exact face of the actor to be copied.
Source 19	(Source 19) http://www.mocapclub.com/images/Drake_Mocap_Comp.jpg - Image of motion capture used in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune	An image of how motion capture was used in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune showing how movement was captured exactly from the actors to make it precise and accurate.
Source 20	(Source 20) http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee451/nameisprince2/Dissidia012_screenshot_Lightning_CG.jpg - Image of a pre-rendered cutscene from Final Fantasy	Image of a pre-rendered cutscene from Final Fantasy where the better graphics are used to portray story and emotion.
Source 21	(Source 21) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr-d5lUN9Lk – Video of a real-time cutscene from Assassin’s Creed	A video of a real-time cutscene in Assassin’s Creed where the player can interact with the cutscene but cannot change the story still.
Source 22	(Source 22) http://www.worldofpwnage.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ShenmueInteractiveCutscenePic1.jpg - Image of an interactive cutscene from Shenmue City	An image of an interactive cutscene from Shenmue City where you have to press buttons to change the outcome of the cutscene.