The Bridge Between Gameplay and Cutscenes: QTEs

Gameplay and Cutscenes have often been at war with each other, with one providing an interactive experience and the other a passive one. They can both represent large portions of the entertainment in games, but the two forces have been kept separate for several decades. Early games had such weak presentation that cutscenes did not have as large an importance as they do today, so the games that benefited most towards making cutscenes interactive were interactive movies such as Dragon’s Lair where the cutscenes commanded a large portion of the entertainment.

It wasn’t until around the arrival of the Dreamcast that video games no longer need pre-rendered footage to deliver scenes that rivaled films, so making them more dynamic had finally become an option. This is when Yu Suzuki gave us not only Shenmue, but the term QTE (Quick Time Event). After the mechanic was popularized in games like Shenmue, God of War, and Resident Evil 4, its usage in other games dramatically increased to the point where it is now a well-known mechanic and aid for designers in their games.

As the mechanic saw more use, it also saw more misuse, and it really looked like the QTE’s only purpose was that it made everything more interesting. It made cutscenes more like gameplay and it made gameplay more like cutscenes, and it seems that’s all developers really needed to know before they found several different ways to abuse it.

Even as I say that QTEs have been misused, there isn’t currently a “right” and “wrong” way of using them. I would however consider that there are effective and ineffective methods of utilizing QTEs, where the effective methods fully display the engaging potential of the mechanic. While QTEs are implemented in many different ways, there are three categories that seem to represent how they are predominantly used in games today. Two of the three categories represent ineffective usages of QTEs, they are QTEs that make gameplay feel more like a cutscene and QTEs that make cutscenes feel more like gameplay.


When used “ineffectively” QTEs will maintain the disconnect between what is a
cutscene and what is gameplay.


The first category represents QTEs that make gameplay feel more like a cutscene. These are used to give gameplay a cool presentation by allowing the character to perform context-sensitive actions that do not exist within the game’s normal mechanics. This is when the QTEs feel like a mini-game, where the experience feels like a game that is separate from the core mechanics. This is used often in many action games such as God of War when Kratos utilizes flashy finishers on his enemies.

The QTEs in God of War can differ depending on whether Kratos is dealing with a regular foe or a boss. When fighting regular foes his QTEs are simple and often fit with the rest of the gameplay, so he may for instance do a context-sensitive grab on an enemy using the grab button. When fighting bosses however, the QTEs become so elaborate with so many button presses that players see a stark contrast between what they’re doing during those QTEs and their actions during the rest of the game. In addition to the contrast of what they are doing, these QTEs are often mandatory to perform unlike the ones used on regular enemies; this leads the players to see the scripted nature of the event and subsequently associate their actions with “acting out a scene” rather than triumphantly beating a boss. These QTEs consequently create a disconnect between regular gameplay and QTE gameplay, rather than seamlessly creating one unified gameplay experience.

God of War QTE

Naruto QTE

Paragon / Renegade QTE

Heavy Rain QTE