One of the most used resources in game development, pre-rendered scenarios are a tool that allowed designers to fully explore the capabilities of consoles at a time when brute force for graphics processing was still a topic of speculation in magazines. And despite its disuse being predictable as new hardware allowed for an escalation in creating more realistic worlds in real-time, the charm and sense of nostalgia of many of these scenes remain remembered to this day.
But first, a brief history
Pre-rendered graphics emerged between the late 1980s and early 1990s as a proposal to the artistic advances that games were already facing as they became more realistic and more "serious." Games like Virtua Racing and Star Fox valued real-time 3D technology that prioritized greater interactivity and fluidity with the environment in which the action occurred, but in return, they gave up greater quality in their assets, presenting modest and restrained graphics made to fit on the cartridge.But with pre-rendering, other examples emerged, revolutionizing how graphics were seen by fans and developers: Mortal Kombat, Donkey Kong, and Maximum Force are some examples of games that used this resource to replace character sprites and scenarios. In these games, despite the limited interaction and general lack of a sense of depth—after all, pre-rendered graphics are 2D—the realism is striking and captivates the player, a big step forward from the pixel art games of the time and competing head-on with the completely 3D games, both with their advantages and disadvantages.
Virtua Racing sacrificed realism to prioritize interaction.
And the 1990s were a true cradle for the technique: primarily with increasingly robust PCs with graphics capabilities that resembled those of cinema studio workstations, but also with the console that emerged in the middle of the decade, the PlayStation, which, despite being objectively weaker than its competitors, used the resource to tell unforgettable stories.
First acclaimed examples
Alone In The Dark seems simple by today's standards, but it was a shock more than 30 years ago.
One of the first games to show this type of scenario to a large audience was Alone in the Dark (PC, 1992), a milestone in horror narratives that would generate one of the most famous genres in games. Telling a story influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and Dario Argento, the game takes place in a mansion full of mysteries and frightening creatures that inhabit fixed-angle scenes throughout the journey to the end of the game. According to its creators, the decision for this artistic approach was due to the technical limitations of the time.
The following year, it was Myst's (PC, 1993) turn to present more scenarios that challenged the realism that people were used to seeing in a video game, at least at that time. The pre-rendered scenarios took advantage of being reproduced on low-resolution monitors, causing real 3D objects to blend quite successfully, and as a result, games like Myst received praise for their graphics and presentation.
Haunted mansions and cities in ruins
Horror, as a genre, was one of the greatest beneficiaries of the technique, by which it would be remembered to this day. In addition to the aforementioned Alone in the Dark, in a mix of technological timing with the hype for the new generation in which 3D would dominate, the first Resident Evil (PSX, 1996) and its unforgettable initial presentation were released: if on one hand no one forgets the cutscene that kicks off the story of the S.T.A.R.S. team, everyone remembers the beautiful (or not so much) mansion in which the game takes place.Resident Evil 3: Nemesis took a surreal step forward from other productions of the same era.
Resident Evil was one of the symbols of this new generation for its presentation, and its sequels were no less: Resident Evil 2 (PSX, 1998) and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (PSX, 1999) brought even more detailed locations that told the story of the events by themselves. Director Shinji Mikami, about the first game in the series, said that the intention of the scenarios was to cause a sensation that at every corner the player could find something that would threaten them. One of the franchise's symbols would be its gigantic villains who pursue the protagonists and take advantage of the fixed camera angles and ultra-realistic scenarios.
In the transition from 2D to 3D
After the first Resident Evil, the PlayStation would become the home of games that would be definitive for fans of various genres and for the art of pre-rendering scenarios. One of them was the RPG, which would see one of its first peaks of popularity in the West thanks to Final Fantasy VII (PSX, 1997), a true milestone in games that featured an artistic direction that elevated the futuristic aesthetic in stories about revolution and revenge. During the narrative, the extremely industrialized areas and the suburbs contrasting with the surface stand out.On the rival platform of the newcomer Sony, we also have an example that, although not much remembered exactly for its use of the resource, is one of the most acclaimed titles of all time: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1997). I bet many still remember the first time they turned on the game on the Nintendo 64 and immediately in the main scene saw Link being woken up in his fully pre-rendered house. In the 2011 remake, it would be entirely polygonal.
The whole world surrendered
The years leading up to and following the 2000s were a true ode to the resource, and it is when the most examples are found, largely due to the construction and deconstruction of the technique's artistry, in addition to the technological evolution itself. Large companies like Capcom and Squaresoft dictated rules on consoles, but there was also the rise of studios from the other side of the world that used ready-made scenarios to tell their stories.Digimon World has one of the most inventive arts in RPGs.
From Japan, there were productions that, if they didn't completely captivate a generation, generated fans who still remember them fondly: Dino Crisis (PSX, 1999) and Onimusha: Warlords (PS2, 2001) continued Resident Evil's legacy by Capcom and presented scenarios in the same vein, between realism and fantastic elements that rival the photography of cinema. Parasite Eve (PSX, 1998) and Digimon World (PSX, 1999) also bring this characteristic and apply it distinctly. While the first tells a more mature story and brings scenarios that reflect this, the Digimon franchise game shows a world of digital beings formed by the very technological elements that constitute it.
Planescape: Torment, acclaimed for its narrative and bizarre aesthetic.
In the West, studios like Black Isle and Oddworld Inhabitants gave another look to this type of scenario, but with the same varieties of design and the ease of telling stories through what looked more like paintings. While games like Fallout (PC, 1997) and Planescape: Torment (PC, 1999) used a broader isometric view to narrate adventures about the end of the world and the afterlife, Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey (PSX and PC, 1997) gained fame by placing players in the shoes of its titular protagonist who needed to escape the factory where he worked and his fearsome bosses.
The new generation and the creative peak
During the following generation, with PlayStation 2, GameCube, and the original Xbox fighting in a true transformation of technologies and artistic techniques, pre-rendered scenarios saw their popularity go from the highest peak ever seen to near obsolescence. The consoles already demonstrated enough power to not need this resource and generate their own scenarios in real-time.
The animated pre-rendering of Baten Kaitos was really something new for the time.
But that doesn't mean it was something that disappeared overnight, quite the contrary: Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (GC, 2003) showed that Nintendo's purple box had room for the beloved technique and presented scenarios with animated renderings, something impossible in previous years. Shin Megami Tensei: NINE (Xbox, 2002), the first game of the franchise on Microsoft platforms, brought with it the city of Tokyo almost faithfully reproduced.
Before appearing as the main location of the Yakuza series, Kabukicho was already an inspiration for Shin Megami Tensei: NINE.
Boku No Natsuyasumi 2 is a game that looks more like an animated film.
On PlayStation 2, one of the titles that has recently been rediscovered, thanks to a fan-made translation, was Boku No Natsuyasumi 2: Umi No Bouken-Hen (PS2, 2002), a game in which the player spends an entire summer doing various activities in a countryside house and has scenarios that blend 3D pre-rendering and oil painting, a rare approach to see. On PC, Myst IV - Revelation (PC, 2004) brought even more impressive scenarios more than ten years after the first game in the series and did not surrender to real-time graphics, which had already been used in the remakes of the 1993 title. And even handhelds had their representatives, such as Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Sacred Cards (GBA, 2002), an RPG that, despite not showing off style, added one more platform to the gallery of this art.
Less need, more style
Nowadays, pre-rendered scenarios are used much more for design stylization than for hardware technical limitations, and if on one hand they receive a very low number of representatives in games released today, on the other hand, they exude visual attitude to drive their stories and gameplay.Disco Elysium (Multi, 2019), one of the most acclaimed games of recent years, uses this type of scene to tell a rich and dense story, in a world translated into what looks more like an oil painting. Torment: Tides of Numenera (Multi, 2017), spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, brings the traditional RPGs of the early 2000s back to the table and with it those same artistic visions of that era.
And it doesn't stop there: independent games like Crow Country (Multi, 2024) and Ground Zero (Platforms and dates to be announced) promise to bring much more than a sense of nostalgia. The games that are true homages to 1990s classics still bring the icing on the cake, which are the pre-rendered scenarios that give a special atmosphere to the presentation of these titles.
Ground Zero has barely been announced and is already another that stands out for its aesthetic decisions.
Of course, we could go on remembering various other titles and their beautiful scenarios; this was just the surface of what was and is one of the most creative artistic contributions of the gaming world, where something resembling true works of art emerged from the limitation of resources.
