Question Weekend Question: Do you ever skip cutscenes?

[PCG Jody]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week the question is: Do you ever skip cutscenes?

Now that Death Stranding is finally out on PC, complete with Hideo Kojima's trademark cutscenes of considerable duration, it's a timely question. Do you skip cutscenes without feeling so much as a pang of guilt, or does the idea fill you with dread?

 

[Sarafan]

I like to skip cut-scenes only if they're very repeatable. For example Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag lacks this option and that's why I never finished it. It was annoying to watch the same animation dozens or maybe even hundreds of times after every sea battle. If the cut-scenes give important information regarding the story of the game I never skip them. Even when the story isn't very important I just need to watch it. It happens sometimes that I accidentally skip such a cut-scene by pressing the wrong button. In this case I always load the game (if there's an option to do so).

 

[drunkpunk]

I usually watch them the first playthrough of a game, unless like Sarafan said they are repeating cutscenes that don't really add much. If I'm going for full immersion I'll usually let them play out even in a subsequent playthrough. Or if I'm not really invested in the story of the game, just the gameplay, I'll skip right through them. I tend to avoid cutscene-heavy games, though, since gameplay is a bigger draw to me than story a lot of the time. RPGs are a bit different, but if I've played it many times I'll usually skip the cutscenes, as well.

 

[Johnway]

I don't skip them the first time. But during repeated playthroughs or attempts (say before a boss fight) i skip the cutscenes.

End game credits are a different story. If they don't have anything other then a wall of text, i don't hesitate to skip it if i'm bored. Yes, i appreciate all the staff's efforts but frankly i'm exhausted with playing your game and you're now boring me. Let me move on so that i can play something else!

 

[badman]

It depends. If we're talking about cutscene heavy games with a lot of story, length and character development/twists (in general: story that gets hard to follow after some time), I usually skip the storyline after a while. Games like the Witcher 3 or Deus Ex HR are a perfect example. Great games, but I'm the guy that usually just wants to jump in and play. A short but decent (Max Payne) , exciting (Jedi Knight games) or 'interesting' (Stupid Invaders/Normality), storyline is my type of game. Don't make it too lengthy or complicated.

 

[Zloth]

Only if I had already seen it that same day and had it play again because I had to re-load. Even if it was the next morning, I would probably watch it! I've only skipped them in one game: Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. After watching BJ crying into his mamma's skirts (literally) then going to his boyhood farm where we were clearly going to see how troubled his childhood was, I was done.

 

[ZedClampet]

I have a tendency to relax my hand when I'm watching something and accidentally do a right click, so I've skipped cutscenes in every game that uses a right click to skip, like Darksiders.

Other than that, I skip cutscenes if I've already seen them, as in games where I'm grinding and doing the same levels/missions over and over. And, of course, there's always the tragic failed boss fights that let you watch the same cutscene as many times as you can fail. I've actually rage quit before when a game wouldn't let me skip a cutscene tied to a boss fight.

 

[masterchief]

I usually don't. Cutscenes are a lot like commercials- they give me an opportunity to empty my bladder.

 

[Berious]

I only skip cutscenes when there is "social pressure" e.g. you're in an MMO group and know everyone else is just trying to rush the dungeon or whatever asap. By choice I would soak up the atmosphere. Part of the reason I prefer soloing stuff in online games.

 

[PCG Jody]

I have a tendency to relax my hand when I'm watching something and accidentally do a right click

I thought I was the only one who did that!

 

[Pifanjr]

I thought I was the only one who did that!

I've done this many times as well.

 

[Frindis]

Well, I would never, ever do such a thing! That would be just... [Skips]

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I also get the right finger click thing. I wonder if its a particular gene, like being able to roll your tongue up.

I never deliberately skip cut scenes the first time, but I'll skip them all day long if I'm playing a souls game and I'm fighting a boss for the hundredth time.

 

[Zloth]

I get that but not in cutscenes. I have shot a missile or two, though.... that's not as bad, right?

 

[Mazer]

I've been skipping Mr Kojima's cut scenes for close to two decades, ever since MGS2 wore out my patience, and not felt bad about it once. I made an effort to engage with the plot of MGS5 but not even Snake himself seemed entirely invested so I found myself slamming skip every time it told me this was a Hideo Kojima game.

For me it's about lack of time, unless I've already invested in prequels to the plot (Witcher 3) or it's something particularly compelling/lightweight (Prey) then I'm usually there for the gameplay.

I must confess though that Death Stranding has me regretting this state of affairs, it seems like exactly my brand of bunny-boiling insanity and I wish I had a hundred hours to spare.

 

[Lutfij]

I don't skip cutscenes, unless the cutscene is skippable and that I've already seen the cutscene prior(i.e I died and I came back to the same point). If the cutscene grants me/my character some new advice or knowledge that is necessary for the next mission or side quest, then yes I don't skip it.

 

[Zloth]

... my brand of bunny-boiling insanity ...

But... rabbit stew??

 

[SquireZed]

I skip cutscenes when I don't care about the story of a game. So, for example, pretty much any scene outside of the Animus in an Assassin's Creed game (I know some people like that bit, I just want to do some old timey stabbing when I'm playing Assassin's Creed). However, I much prefer the option to skip one line of dialogue- I feel like a lot of cutscenes are just too long and navel gazing, and while I appreciate some really good cutscenes, most aren't worth the 2-3 minutes they think they're worth. If I can get the lines out in 15 seconds though, and get the gist of the story, I like to read the subtitles and at least get names and things.

I tend to skip cutscenes a lot more in games that have too many character names to keep track of, or which have difficult to differentiate characters (similar or obscure names/faces) because I probably won't keep track of them either way, so why bother with the story?

On the flip side, I very rarely skip readable text. If there's a dialogue box, I'm reading it. If there's a collectable scroll, probably going to read that too. Unless it's buried in painful to navigate menus, things are getting read. Similar things for other collectables. I think I just kind of hate watching every single cutscene because so many of them have garbage pacing. I don't mind watching great cutscenes- Ghost of Tsushima is a great example of cinematic cutscenes that are actually worth watching, though I think there are some pacing issues there (partly because you're probably going to be doing a stand-off every few minutes and it has not just one long intro animation but also a reaction time test delayed input, so opening up any non-stealthy fight means ten to fifteen if not more seconds of watching characters approach each other), but they're visually spectacular and fit the feel (classic samurai cinema) perfectly.

 

[PCG Jody]

Here's the finished article with the team's answers, thanks for your contributions, everybody: https://www.pcgamer.com/do-you-ever-skip-cutscenes/