How do you nail great video game cinematics?

Our Engage Solutions team sat down with Big Farmer and Fire Without Smoke to discuss the importance of cinematics in creating immersive experiences for video game audiences.

Date Published: 17/09/2024

In video games, cinematics is a broad term. “It covers any content created in the game engine that is not playable, including cut scenes, intro sequences, tutorials and trailers,” says Ben Lavery, Studio Head at Big Farmer and TrailerFarm.

For many releases, non-playable content constitutes a huge proportion of the game and a vital part of the overall experience – especially when the player’s choices result in new cinematic interactions and endings. Baldur’s Gate 3, for example, “has 174 hours of cinematics, making it more than twice the length of every season of Game of Thrones combined” and “17000 permutations” of the ending. Similarly, Supergiant Games estimates there are 21020 lines of dialogue and 305433 words in the roguelike Hades – including 12 lines for a character that mostly just groans. In Hades, the stunning volume of content ensures the game continues to surprise and reward those who keep playing – which might otherwise become a repetitive grind.

Whatever the form and genre, great cinematics are crucial to creating immersive and emotionally rewarding video games. Getting them right relies on a blend of technical skill, production expertise, and thorough understanding of how they can enhance each player’s experience. “Crafting game cinematics is about more than just stunning visuals, it's about weaving a story that deepens immersion, sparks emotion, and keeps players hooked on the narrative.” says Adina Surdu, Studio Head at Fire Without Smoke.

Live-action filmmaking techniques have become increasingly valuable in the production of video game cinematics. Hideo Kojima, the video game designer behind immersive, cutscene-rich titles including the Metal Gear series and Death Stranding, has promised upcoming release Physint will further “blur the boundaries” between film and video games, with “near life-like graphics” that make it “both a game and a movie at the same time”.

He’s not alone. Over the past decade those boundaries have become increasingly fluid, with more and more studios – from blockbusters to independents – tapping into production, scriptwriting, cinematography, motion capture and other specialist disciplines to create immersive non-playable content. Cutscenes from The Last Of Us were so compelling that fans have cut them into full-length movies, and the film-like narrative helped the game make an unusually successful leap to the small screen. Comparatively, at the opposite end of the scale, indie video game Indika draws inspiration from lower budget and arthouse cinema, with “absurd camera angles” and a “skittish soundscape” that contribute to “a deeply unnerving sense of dreamlike unreality.”

Creative Production: Connect with Your Audience

For over a decade, Keywords Studios has been creating experiences that enable genuine connections with video game audiences.

By pulling together the skills that might typically be needed for a live-action video, studios are able to tell satisfying stories and build believable characters that wouldn’t feel out of place on the big screen, creating new possibilities for digital entertainment and taking video games to an entirely new level. But while making cinematics is very different to developing a video game, it’s also very different to making a movie. Rather than setting up the lighting, running down the shot-list and directing talent in a real-life studio, you work predominantly in-engine. So the creative production team has to complement talented directors, writers and producers with technical development skill – which makes specialist creative production studios ideal for cinematic briefs. Ben continues: “Cinematics are multi-disciplinary. Like trailers, they’re structured and very different to actually playing the game itself. You have to be great at camera work and lighting, and understand game scripts and the overall scale of production.”

The interactivity of video games also raises opportunities – and challenges – when creating great cinematics. The best cinematics should enhance the player’s experience and the video game world, offering “an emotional impact to the player through visual storytelling, not overshadowing, but building on top of, the atmosphere laid out by the interactive gameplay.”

When working with existing IP or historical narrative, studios must also be cognisant of the player’s influence on, and expectations of, the narrative. As Creative Assembly, the makers of the Total War series, say: “The story in the game is what the player decides,” so as well as writing scripts and scenes that drive the narrative forward, we have to make sure “the character’s motives and appeal are in line with [the player’s] story”. The opportunities of high-quality real-time cinematics, which adapt to the player’s character customisation, weapon loadouts, and more, add an extra layer to that immersion – fully placing the player, rather than a default character, at the heart of the narrative. “I still remember finishing The Last of Us 1 at 3 a.m., tears streaming down my face, desperately playing on just to reach the final cutscene and find out how it ended. It's all about creating those cool, resonant moments that make players feel truly connected.” says Adina.

With cinematics being so crucial to immersive video game experiences, it’s essential we get them right. The best cinematics, whether they’re in-game cutscenes or mood-setting introduction sequences, should complement – not detract from – playable content, drawing players more fully into the experience. They must drive the narrative, build characters, entertain, and establish both atmosphere and emotion, even adding purpose and texture to a game. Doing all of this well demands a blend of top tier production expertise with technical in-engine development skill, along with in-depth understanding of video games and how cinematics enhance the experience.

At Keywords Studios, we have the diversity and depth of experience to tackle every aspect of in-game cinematics and cinematic trailers, or collaborate with other studios to contribute to specific stages of the process: “We can script it, we can do the shotlist, we can run the shoot, we can add the VFX and the post and we can deliver a finished piece of content,: says Devon Pearce, Commercial Director at Keywords Studios’ Big Farmer and TrailerFarm. “Equally, if someone just wants to plug us in as a co-dev or outsourced partner to create the environment, VFX or lighting, for example, we do that as well. Whereas a lot of other suppliers would probably be one or the other of those, and involve multiple different clients in the process, we can keep it all under one roof within the Keywords family, and all managed by a single partner studio.”

---

To find out more about cinematics at Keyword Studios, get in touch with our Engage Marketing team below.