Are cutscenes in games dying?

[DonFerrari]

Leynos said:

Oh, you mean pre-rendered ones. Not cutscenes in general. Those were created in the Saturn/PS1 era when 3D graphics or even 2D were not expressive enough to convey the impact of the scene. They have been pointless since the 7th gen. Lost Odyssey boasted about how the visuals were so good the transition from CGI to gameplay would be seamless. Sounded impressive but also proves CGI is pointless then. CGI cutscenes are not just dying they are dead. I mean LO did live up to it's promise. Just watch. Start at the 3-minute mark.

So if they can do that in 2008. What the hell is the point now in 2020? Look at the facial animations in games like Injustice 2 running on current hardware in UE3.

Why do you need a pre-rendered cutscene when the hardware can do this in real-time?

Even Switch with the Xenoblade games are expressive enough and good looking to convey everything they need to do in the engine.  Pre-rendered cutscenes were invented out of necessity. On SEGA CD and Turbo CD, they were animated FMVs. They stayed longer than they needed to. Most of the 7th gen didn't need them and we certainly have no need for them now.

For me cutscenes are to be watched and the better possible quality the better. And yes I was talking about pre-rendered ones (and even that not in-engine, because you can do either pre-rendered in engine or totally outside of it).

I can still spot the differences between both when devs really try to do a good pre-rendered game. And considering we are still improving in graphics and the game graphics aren`t on par with the best possible if you pre-render for me there is still a point.