Ryse: Son of Rome Utilized Pre-Rendered Cutscenes to Curtail “Big Loading Times”

by David Rodriguez (1 hour ago) 2 @CursiveCursing

With the advent of each new generation in gaming, there are always numerous discussions that arise concerning how load times, graphics, gameplay, and other attributes will change. Ryse: Son of Rome found a way around long load times by utilizing a significant amount of pre-rendered cutscenes amid the gameplay.

“My entire rigging pipeline is predicated on the idea that I have to build rigs that can blend in and out of cutscenes seamlessly,” Technical Art Director Christopher Evans told Edge, “so I would go to Peter and the guys and say, ‘Hey, I see this loading video is now scheduled to be prerendered. Why?’ We talked about it and it was, ‘Well, we don’t want players to be waiting. If we’re rendering a scene live as well as trying to load the next scene, the engine will take probably three or four times longer.’ In the end, we sided with the gamers. We didn’t feel they should have to wait through a big loading time.”

Ryse: Son of Rome was developed by Crytek and published by Microsoft for the Xbox One on November 22nd, 2013.

Source: http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/02/12/ryse-son-of-rome-utilized-pre-rendered-cutscenes-to-curtail-big-loading-times/

Yup. In game cut-scenes are really only ever used when pre-rendered ones can't work.

TBH it was fine 15-20 years ago. Now I feel cheated because I assume them as real time graphics. God of war 3 to many recent games are following this trend to deceive people.

That may come back to bite them in the ass 10+ years from now when 900p is considered "standard def" and everyone's using 4k-8k TV's. If they ever re-release the game for PC or next-gen consoles, they're gonna have to completely redo the cutscenes.

Psychonauts on PC is a good example - I'm running it in 1680x1050/60fps, but the cutscenes are 480p(360?)/30fps with no AA. It's...jarring.

Wouldn't be the first time a dev used pre-rendered footage, probably won't be the last.

that doesnt bother me much. but it has froze on me 2 times and it was both at times when it was going to a cutscene, thats about the only negative thing i have to say about it.

Ah yeah I remember playing one of the recent God of War HD remasters and the horrible relative quality of the cutscenes is really odd.  Not much else to add to this, but your post reminded me of the strange situation in which the gameplay actually looks significantly better than the cutscenes.  

Yeah, not really a big deal in my opinion

yeah i remember that.   horribly jarring.  one of the few times i actually wanted to skip a cut scene. 

They aren't trying to deceive people. As the article says it's to help with load times. The only big games that don't do this are rpgs since the player can change things. GOW, Uncharted, tlou, ryse, killzone, knack, etc. all use pre-rendered cut-scenes.