How long is too long for cutscenes?

[Milennin]

Depends on all the basics, like don't make a cutscene longer than it needs to be. Make sure to put some effort in so it's not just a big text scroll or 2 sprites standing still on the screen while making a bunch of dialogue boxes pop up. People have different preferences for what they like in a game, and personally I have a low tolerance for long cutscenes, even if they're well made or well written. I want to play a game, not watch one. And that goes especially for RPG Maker games that have extremely limited graphical capabilities, where cutscenes are rarely made in a way that makes them tolerable to sit through when they start to drag on in length.

Good things to consider are asking yourself which information is actually important and what can you cut out without confusing the player about the plot. Perhaps a bunch of your background lore can be put into optional readable material, opposed to being shoved into a cutscene. Perhaps you can insert playable sequences to your cutscene to give the player game to play while stuff is happening. Perhaps you can find more ways to make the cutscene visually interesting to watch as it plays out.

 

[lianderson]

The more interesting it is, the longer it can be.

 

[NaosoX]

This long:

 

[freakytapir]

This long:
View attachment 256356

And even Square Enix was like : Nah, we need to shorten this one.

(For context, it was a 42 minute dungeon, and that was if you skipped most trash, with about 30 minutes of that runtime being unskippable cutscenes. They cut it down, to 10 minutes of gameplay and 20 minutes of cutscenes. Yay!)

 

[Bernkastelwitch]

Good things to consider are asking yourself which information is actually important and what can you cut out without confusing the player about the plot. Perhaps a bunch of your background lore can be put into optional readable material, opposed to being shoved into a cutscene. Perhaps you can insert playable sequences to your cutscene to give the player game to play while stuff is happening. Perhaps you can find more ways to make the cutscene visually interesting to watch as it plays out.

I know some parts I could possibly merge two different parts for my game into one. I.E: From my video the two sections with the masked Man trying to get info and one of the grunts finding the info they need. Could have him walking while he talks and rewrite it a little or something.

Other stuff with how it is, it's very difficult without extensive plot rewrites or losing some characterization.

I know if I had the ability to draw or at least find an artist to commission actual scene animations who don't ghost me(I keep getting ghosted by artists for some reason) I would make them feel more dynamic. At least for my Intro cutscene. It'd at least soften some of the stuff with a long cutscene there.

Only solution I can think of is to move the current intro down a bit and not make it the actual intro but have something of a flash forward later on. Still keep the original intro but make it slightly later.

 

[KawaiiKid]

The only game series I ever thought had cutscenes too long was the xenosaga games. You'd have a 20 minute cutscene, get control of your character to run about 10 feet and then have another 15 minute cutscene. This is not hyperbole.

 

[DJK1NG_Gaming]

I don't think it's an issue to have a long cutscene.
What would be an issue is if the long cutscene ended being a complete waste
of time in terms of progressing the world or lore or story or character development.

Such as so much lore dump at the beginning of a game and the player doesn't really
have much control til an hour into the game. Long cutscene becomes a problem
once it test the player patience.

 

[freakytapir]

Such as so much lore dump at the beginning of a game and the player doesn't really
have much control til an hour into the game. Long cutscene becomes a problem
once it test the player patience.

Especially in modern gaming.
In the old days, you popped in the Disk/Cartridge and started playing.
Players would tolerate an exposition dump more than these days, as time between popping in the disk, and you starting the game was minutes.


These days, you pop in the disk.
Have a 60 minute install.
Patch for 50 minutes.
Patch again for another 35.
Download all your pre-order DLC, typing in some 16 digit codes with a controller...

By the time you get to play, you want to PLAY.

 

[Tai_MT]

A lot of what I'll say mirrors what is said in this topic:
Long Cutscene Tips

The basic gist is:

It doesn't really matter how long the cutscene itself is. It matters how long it FEELS the cutscene is.

The problem with the FFXIV Cutscene Dungeons was that it was unreasonable. It made sense to make the cutscene "unskippable" for new players who had never seen the story before. However, when a lot of the endgame content funneled veteran players back through that same cutscene stuff... they now had to suffer those long cutscenes once a week while they grinded out their Endgame Currency.

Instead of shortening the cutscene, it would've simply made a lot more sense to have the cutscene auto skip for groups who had already completed the content and be unskippable if a single player was present who had never completed it before.

Especially since the community is very "noob friendly", I think they would understand if they rolled up in it one week and it couldn't be skipped 'cause someone was new, while most of the time, it would auto-skip. I mean, the community already waits for players to finish cutscenes in Dungeons and Trials. It's considered "Very Bad Manners" not to, and sometimes players report others who don't wait. Or let those who don't wait... die and wipe for their arrogance.

Anyway, I'll just repost what I said in the other topic. I think it's still relevant for this one:

I'm most likely going to be the "odd man out" on this one.

For me "long cutscenes" only matter to me... if your writing is insanely boring, stupid, or dry. If it's not interesting to read, I have no interest in your cutscene and wish it were over.

I, still to this day, watch every single cutscene in Halo 1 through 3. Yes, I've played the games over 1000 times each. The cutscenes are good, they engage, and they're fun.

In Chrono Trigger, I still read every single line of dialogue on a new playthrough, because I enjoy the characters, the setting, the story, and it's well written. I am the same way with Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 1.

Here's my "odd man out" observations and advice:

It's okay if your cutscene is 10 minutes long. Or 20 minutes long. As long as it doesn't FEEL 10 minutes long, or 20 minutes long. If your scenes don't feel very long, then the length doesn't matter. You've achieved immersion and garnered rapt attention from your audience.

If you feel like, "five minutes for a cutscene is too long", it's likely because you're playing a terribly boring game in terms of story. Or characters. It's typically a symptom of "bad writing".

Good writing will have a reader consume a 1000 page book and it didn't feel like it was 1000 pages. Bad writing will have a reader consume a 32 page book and complain that it should've ended 10 freakin' pages ago.

Put simply, more enjoyment of the cutscene means a higher tolerance for the length.

That's why if someone critiques your game and says "your cutscenes are too long", the first thing you should check is whether or not your cutscene is actually interesting, fun, or engaging for the player. Because, if it's not, then even a 3 minute long cutscene is going to be "too long".

And yeah, I've played games where a 30 second cutscene was "too long". I've also played games where I ended up reading like 5 pages of text (like literal book pages of text) and went, "that's it? Now I have to go back to fighting before I can learn more and get more character engagement? That sucks."

Don't even take my word for it, either. Do some personal analysis on your behavior. Aren't you skipping the cutscenes because they're "nothing special"? There's nothing interesting going on? The story was only good for a "one and done", and not more? What is wrong with the dialogue that you are hitting the "skip" button so often? Figure out why you like shorter scenes and in what instances you have tolerated much longer ones.

You'll likely come to the same conclusion I did:

You weren't engaged. The high point of the game wasn't the narrative for you. Or the characters.

Which typically means "the writers on that game were particularly bad at their job".

 

[Andar]

Different people have different opinions and different game types have different limits.

In an Action-RPG the cutscenes should be short, because in an ARPG it is rare for players to care about the story.
In a detective-type RPG you'll need long cutscenes to hide the hints of what is really going on.

You'll need to keep your target group in mind when making those decisions.
I for example like cutscenes as long as they are either entertaining or interesting.

But of course there is the other type of player as well:

 

[heyguy]

Anybody remember this cutscene? 50-ish minutes of PS4 goodness!



I ate up all of Metal Ger Solid's crazy, ridiculous and sometimes loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo- oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong cutscenes. So I don't think a cutscene can be too long lol. It really depends on the type of game your making, the production values you throw at a cutscene, the art, camera movement, sound design and more. I wouldn't stand for a 50 min cutscene of stock RTP assets talking in textboxes. But something with more production values and a story I'm invested in - yes maybe.

Even though I love MGS and all their cutscenes - I also think brevity is the soul of wit. Especially when it comes to indie games and working with limited budgets. So limiting the amount of cutscenes might lead to more creativity. Showing, not telling is another thing I like when it comes to cutscenes. You can lore dump about the kingdoms at war in your first cutscene, you can show a image of a two warring armies or you can design a city map where two armies are fighting and pan the camera across it. Option 1 is the most boring.

 

[Arctica]

This long:
View attachment 256356

That among other parts of the game, this needs to be said:

SQUARE ENIX HAS ENTERED THE CHAT.