>>61848854>How should cutscenes be handled then?NTA but 100% agree with the half life school of thought on that, let the player move around the environment while it plays out and try to keep them short.
Having the camera be ripped away from the player so it can pan over everything going on always pulls you out of the moment.
Letting the player walk around and look over things when they aren't directly needed in a sequence lets the player feel like they're actually the character they're playing as.
It also forces the developers to keep expository segments short, and convey information through the world around the player more than just literally saying "THING HAPPENED".
The downside is you can end up with HL2 style segments where a bunch of characters are talking and the player's off on the other side of the room trying to see how far they can whip cans at peoples heads from.
On top of that, I really feel like adding first person animations for certain things can actually detract from the immersion of any given situation.
Having a character flip a switch for example.
If you press E and the switch is flipped, your brain makes the immediate connection that you reached out and flipped the switch.
Having an animation where the player is locked into a sequence where the character reaches out, flips the switch while stuck in place, then resets to a default pose with a few seconds of dead air to transition between the two states makes it feel like you were telling the character to do something as opposed to doing it.
The most immersive thing I experienced in terms of gameplay was system shock 2's climb system, you press jump, then hold it to grab a ledge, then keep holding it to climb the ledge, but can release it at any time to drop, and it makes you feel like you're actually climbing a ledge better than any other climbing mechanic in any other game without any animations.
Immersion is best achieved through mechanics, not visuals.
