Waiting for Something to Happen: Narratives, Interactivity and Agency and the Video Game Cut-Scene

Cheng's paper treats the video game cut-scene as a contested site where narrative and gameplay converge, challenging the "radical ludology" position that cut-scenes are merely passive interruptions of play. Its central thesis is that interactivity and agency must be distinguished: a cut-scene may involve very little actual player input, yet still generate a powerful sense of agency. Through close analysis of Resident Evil 4, the author shows how quick-time event sequences, in which button presses determine outcomes, produce what is termed "representational agency," the experience of being the protagonist of an action film, even when the underlying interactivity is tightly constrained.

The argument is extended through a transmedia framework, drawing on scholars such as Grodal, Murray, Klevjer, and Kinder. On this view, cut-scenes borrow formal codes from cinema and are central to building a coherent fictional world and a felt sense of agency for the player. King Kong (2005) serves as the paper's most explicit example of cinema and games deliberately fused. Its "map" and "Jack sequence" cut-scenes blur narrative viewing and play, and moments of "meaningful inaction" allow agency to emerge even when the player is doing little. The game's shifts between Jack and Kong, and its narrative bracketing of the Kong levels, also suggest how game cut-scenes can reshape film genre conventions and audience interpretation.

The paper's conclusions are that cut-scene innovations can expand experienced agency despite limited interactivity, and that the cinema-game relationship offers a productive lens for understanding both narrative form and player agency. Rather than framing the field as an opposition between narratology and ludology, the analysis positions the cut-scene as a meeting point where the two can be examined together. The scope is focused on specific titles from the mid-2000s, particularly Resident Evil 4 and King Kong (2005), and on the formal relationship between mainstream action games and cinematic conventions.