The Rise and Fall of Quick Time Events

Dragon's Lair - the grand-daddy of quick time events

Back in the day, when the power of PC/console gaming hardware was the equivalent of what we'd call hamster-powered today, game designing was a rather restrictive affair and the balancing act between gameplay and presentation was far more difficult than it is now. In games where characters were little more than really low pixel-count sprites, complex character animation was possible in game engines themselves. But when studios opted for better visuals, the hardware could not support engine-driven animations and a game-engine's processing load at the same time.


What developer 'Advanced Microcomputer System' did to overcome this, was they dumped a whole lot of pre-rendered animated sequences on a disc, and depending on whether you fail or progress at any point in their 1983 hit "Dragon's Lair', the coinciding animation would be played. To break it down, the game was basically a sequence of pre-rendered cut-scenes driven by your actions. This helped surpass the need for a complex game engine, giving the hardware that much more resource to use power the game's visuals, so the game could adopt near-animated-movie looking visuals that were leagues ahead of the simple low-res sprite-based characters in game of those times. Understandably, gameplay got rather restrictive since the game was more cinematic than real-time/free-form. To keep things interactive they added context sensitive actions, where the game would require you to follow a certain key-presses in timely manner in order to progress. The grand-daddy of Quick Time Events was born.

Quick Time Events (QTE) is a method of gameplay where the player's given limited control of a game's character during cut scenes or cinematic sequences, and it generally involves the player following onscreen prompts to press buttons or perform other actions (like shaking the controller). Failing these segments takes the scene in a different course, most often to the player's death - Wikipedia

Dragon's Lair's gameplay was entirely based on context sensitive actions, and it worked really well for the primitive adventure game. As hardware grew in power over the years, the limits that plagued developers were lifted. Entire games based on QTEs were no longer feasible, since the new gamer wanted more control. The second step in the evolution of QTEs made the mechanic a small part of games, rather than the core gameplay mechanic it was in Dragon's Lair. Games like DieHard (1996) and more importantly Shenmue (2000) were born. Yu Suzuki, the reputed game designer behind Shenmue, was the one who coined the term 'Quick Time Event'. Most of the gameplay in Shenmue was freeform/real-time, but in a few instances it would move to QTEs, such as when you'd fight another character, or chase down crooks. The contained gameplay of QTEs in an open real-life simulating, free-form gameplay structure like Shenmue's, worked really well to break the pace and add variety to the gameplay.

Yu Suzuki of Shenmue fame coined the term 'Quick Time Events'

QTEs were popularized by God of War, which featured the best implementation of it to date. The contrasts between the highly fluid combo system of the game, and the occasional restriction of timed QTEs, was stark and the game used it beautifully to do every thing from finishing off boses, to ripping the head off hydras. With the abundance of free-flow combat in the game, QTEs became sort of an appetizer interspersed to test the twitch based gamer within, and at the same time break away from monotony that could have been borne off even a combat system as deep as that of God of War's. What made its implementation perfect here, was firstly - that God of War didn't over do it and you'd have QTEs only while fighting tougher enemies or bosses (apart from the occasional off-beat places such as breaking out of stone from a Gorgon's gaze or lifting heavy objects), secondly - QTEs allowed you to pull off really cool moves, such as dodging attacks and following up with counter attacks, jumping on the back of an enormous cyclops and pulling ripping his eye out, with just a few button presses. Doing so manually would have been a real pain.

Implementation of QTEs in God of War were top notch

Then came games like Ninja Blade - which was pretty much a game based around QTEs. In a day and age when there are so many options to design your control scheme around, Ninja Blade went the lazy way and pumped QTEs through out the game, to the point that you'd lose track of where the Quick Time Events end and when the actual gameplay begins. Having QTEs in such quick succession in a fast paced action game really ruins the pace, and makes you feel like you're just a spectator watching the game from a far. Also, throwing it in when you least expect it (or when want it the least) makes QTEs that much more painful.

In a game like God of War, you could pretty much anticipate when QTEs were going to take place, so you wouldn't be forced to follow fixed sequences when you're frustratedly unprepared. To make matters worse, every time you'd fail a QTE, you'd move to the starting of it over and over again till you'd get the timing perfect. Not only does this completely ruin the pace of the game, it pretty much stagnates it to a frustrating stand-still if you're stuck.

Ninja Blade had way too many QTEs!

To sum up, QTEs are a welcome addition to games in small doses. An overdose of them can alienate you from the core gameplay, ruining the experience completely. Also, having you do simple things such as opening doors or grates using button mashes, is terribly annoying and I sure hope developers stop doing it. Making QTEs too difficult and manditory is terrible too, since if you can't get the timing right, you're pretty much left twiddling your thumbs and cursing the developer.