Abridged cutscene fadeout - preserving and boosting plot engagement

Fresh from the depths of my mind, comes the greatest tool in cutscene technology since the pause button, the Abridged Cutscene Fadeout (ACF).

We’ve all skipped a cutscene from time-to-time. Sometimes because we’ve seen it a million times before, sometimes because we need to get to the save-point quickly so we can go to bed/head out to work, and sometimes because we’re unappreciative bastards with no consideration for the story and just want to get back to the game.

My idea, the ACF, is that, when a user chooses to skip the cutscene, as the sequence fades to black, a brief, one/two sentence summary of the scene is displayed for a couple of seconds. That’s it.

Examples of summaries could be as simple as “x betrays you”, “y is killed by the villain” or even “Liquid reveals himself as your twin, and that the government is using you as a carrier to spread a virus that caused the heart attacks.”

This helps alleviate some of the above problems; if you are following the story, but have to skip the cutscene, you’re not left in the dark regarding the main story, and even if you’ve been intentionally skipping the story, this offers a mostly-unintrusive way of drip-feeding you what you need to know to pick the plot back up, if you so wish. No longer does skipping a cutscene completely sever engagement with the plot, merely gives the player more control over how and when they consume it.

As an added bonus, having the writer summarise each sequence for inclusion in this manner could be helpful to them when it comes to editing their own scripts, helping identify what is necessary from what is fluff, and giving them an opportunity to tighten it up before it goes to production.

If anyone ever uses this technique, please let me know, I’d love it see it in action!