Tomb Raider and the Quick Event of Time

Christian Engels April 28, 2015 [Games]

Quick time events are generally shunned in the gaming population. And even people open to different concepts hate them. I want to argue for quick time events on the example of "Tomb Raider" (2013).

Quick time events have the unique position emulating an action without a special controller required. The greatest example is probably Heavy Rain. Every movement translates to joystick movement or other controller input. And the input makes sense. If you need to brush your teeth you push the stick up and down in unison with animation. Every QTE in Heavy Rain uses movement which maps almost isomorphic to the real event happening on the screen. And because of this isomorphism our brain can see the event as a tool [1] and not just a weird input method. And if our brain sees this action as a tool we are more likely to immerse our self in the world.

Tomb Raider is more conservative. No complicated joystick or mouse movements and no mundane activities to emulate. However, it is consistent. If you need to do something with your feet you have to use your "feet" button. If you need your hands, your "hands" button which is also used for steadying your grip or hacking your pickaxe into a wall. It is not just a Simon Says game but a consistent input method. This lays the foundation of a good QTE system. In contrast, consistency is rarely found in the standard QTE system. Instead of the player being immersed he is not only surprised by the appearance of a QTE but also by which button he has to press. Combine this with strict time constraints, QTE are made to be a challenge instead of a gameplay asset.

But the QTE system in Tomb Raider becomes excellent by one scene in the middle of the game. Lara falls down from a helicopter and needs to pull her parachute. This is again consistent for asking you to push the "hands" button. You push it, the parachute deploys but breaks. Now you are in a mad scramble to pull the included safety parachute. And now the game brilliantly asks you to push the shift button. A different button as the hands button (e), a different button than the feet button (f) and really a button that is not used in any other quick time event but still a normal control button. Suddenly you, the player, is in a mad scramble to find the right button, to find the correct string for the second parachute. This is the game connecting directly with the player. When I first saw the unfamiliar prompt I uttered a curse word at the screen. And not because the game just pulled a cheap trick.

The poison of quick time events

But quick time events have a major draw back. They will poison your whole game. Imagine there being no other quick time events in the whole game except the parachute one. The whole sequence would just feel cheap. A sudden surprise and disconnect from your control of the game. Like if a First Person Shooter would suddenly turn into a Super Meat Boy for a few seconds.

This means you need to litter your game with quick time events. They need to happen often enough such that the player does not forget they exist and notices the consistency of your control scheme. While you can make them expressive, in sync with the action on-screen and consistent, you can't make every event engaging. At least not in a game with good core mechanics.

And this is the greatest downfall of the quick time events in Tomb Raider. They happen to often and feel just like busy work for you to do something while the game shows a cutscene. You just want to get back to the gunplay.

I hope this showed that QTE systems should not be dismissed just because they are different input methods but viewed on their own, critiqued like any other gameplay element.