Actors on green screens. Grainy 320p resolution. Bad acting that feels like a high school theater department on a shoestring budget. If you grew up in the 90s, that’s probably what you think of when you hear the term full motion video games. It’s a genre that everyone loves to roast. We remember the absolute train wrecks like Night Trap or the sheer, baffling weirdness of Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties. Honestly, for a long time, FMV was basically the punchline of the gaming industry. People thought it was a dead end—a weird evolutionary glitch that happened because we finally had CD-ROMs but didn't know how to make 3D models look like anything other than a pile of sharp gray triangles.
But here's the thing. FMV never actually died. It just went into hiding and came back smarter.
While most people were busy laughing at the Sega CD library, something shifted. Technology caught up to the ambition. We went from compressed, stuttering video clips to 4K cinematography and seamless branching narratives. You've probably played one recently without even calling it an FMV game. If you’ve touched Her Story, Immortality, or even that Black Mirror: Bandersnatch episode on Netflix, you’re engaging with a medium that has deep, messy roots in the 1980s arcade scene. It’s not just a nostalgia trip; it’s a specific way of telling a story that CGI still can't quite replicate, no matter how many polygons you throw at a character's face.
The LaserDisc Dream and the 16-Bit Nightmare
In the beginning, there was Dragon’s Lair. Don Bluth—the legendary animator behind The Secret of NIMH—basically decided that games should look like high-quality cartoons. It was 1983. People were used to Pac-Man. Seeing a fully animated movie that you could "control" was like seeing magic. It made a billion dollars in quarters. But the tech was a nightmare. LaserDisc players were mechanical, slow, and prone to breaking. You weren't really "playing" so much as you were participating in a high-stakes game of Simon Says. Move the stick right at the exact millisecond the prompt appears or watch Dirk the Daring die for the hundredth time.
Then the 90s hit. The industry got obsessed with the idea of "Interactive Movies."
Companies like Digital Pictures and Sierra On-Line started filming real people. They thought this was the future of Hollywood. They hired actual actors—sometimes even famous ones like Christopher Walken in Ripper or Mark Hamill in Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger. But the hardware wasn't ready. To fit video onto a CD-ROM, they had to compress it until it looked like a moving oil painting. The frame rates were abysmal. The "gameplay" was often just clicking a door and waiting ten seconds for the disc to spin up and show you a five-second clip of a hallway.
It felt clunky. It felt fake.
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And then Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid happened. Suddenly, real-time 3D graphics could tell cinematic stories without needing a film crew. The industry pivoted hard. FMV was relegated to the bargain bin of history, seen as a gimmicky relic of a time when we didn't know better.
Sam Barlow and the Modern FMV Renaissance
If you want to understand why full motion video games are actually good now, you have to talk about Sam Barlow. In 2015, he released Her Story. It didn't have a budget of millions. It didn't have "action" sequences. It was just a woman in an interrogation room. You played as a person sitting at a dusty old computer, typing keywords into a database to find video clips.
It worked because it used video for what video is best at: human nuance.
You weren't looking at a 3D model trying to mimic an emotion; you were looking at Viva Seifert’s face. You were watching her micro-expressions, her hesitations, the way she drank water. You became a detective in a way that L.A. Noire—with all its fancy motion capture—never quite achieved. It proved that FMV wasn't about the "movie" part; it was about the "interface."
Since then, we’ve seen a massive surge in high-quality interactive cinema. Telling Lies took the concept further, and Immortality basically turned the act of film editing into a mechanical hook. These aren't just "press button to watch clip" games anymore. They use the video as a raw material for gameplay.
Why CGI Still Struggles to Compete
We’re getting close to the "Uncanny Valley" being bridged, but we aren't there yet. Even the best games like The Last of Us Part II or Cyberpunk 2077 still feel like digital puppets. There is a weight and a soul to real film that is incredibly difficult to program.
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- The Eyes: In FMV, you see the actual light reflecting in a human pupil.
- The Sound: Background noise in a real room has a texture that synthetic foley often lacks.
- The Subtlety: A slight tremble in a hand or a catch in a voice is natural for an actor, but an animator has to manually "choose" to put that in.
The Technical Hurdle: Branching Without Breaking
The biggest problem with full motion video games has always been the "seams." You know the feeling: you make a choice, the screen goes black for a split second, and then a new video starts. It breaks the immersion. It reminds you that you’re just triggering files on a drive.
Modern developers have gotten crafty. They use "looping idle" clips where the actor just breathes or shifts slightly while the game waits for your input. They use seamless transitions where the camera move in one clip perfectly matches the start of the next. Late Shift is a great example of this. If you’re quick with your choices, the movie never stops. It just flows. It feels like you’re directing a live broadcast rather than playing a rigid puzzle.
But it's expensive. Really expensive. If you want a game with ten different endings, you have to film ten different endings. In a 3D game, you can just move the character model and change some dialogue lines. In FMV, you have to pay the crew, rent the location, and feed the actors for every single variation. That’s why many modern FMV titles are indie projects or experimental "one-off" experiences.
The Genre Misconceptions
People think FMV is just for horror or mystery. Sure, The 7th Guest and Phantasmagoria leaned into the "spooky house" trope because it’s easy to film. But the genre is broader than that. We have rom-coms like Five Dates, which was filmed entirely during the COVID-19 lockdowns. We have high-octane sci-fi like the Tesla Effect.
The misconception is that FMV is "lesser" because it lacks traditional mechanics like jumping or shooting. But that’s like saying a book is "lesser" than a movie because it doesn't have a soundtrack. It’s a different medium. The "gameplay" in a good FMV title is the psychological engagement with the footage. It's the "Aha!" moment when you notice something in the background of a shot that the protagonist didn't see.
How to Get Into the Genre Today
If you’re skeptical, don't go back and play the 90s stuff first. You'll just get frustrated with the interface. Start with the "New Wave" of interactive fiction.
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Look at Wales Interactive. They’ve basically become the modern powerhouse of this niche. They’ve released titles like The Complex and Maid of Sker (the FPS has an FMV-heavy spin-off feel). They understand that the audience for these games isn't necessarily "hardcore gamers" who want to master a combo string. It’s people who like Netflix but wish they could talk back to the screen.
Real Practical Advice for New Players
- Don't overthink the "correct" path. FMV games are designed for multiple playthroughs. If you try to get the "good" ending on your first try by looking up a guide, you’ve basically ruined the point. The fun is in seeing how the story breaks when you make a bad call.
- Pay attention to the environment. Unlike 3D games where items are highlighted with a glowing outline, FMV games often hide clues in plain sight within the set design.
- Check the platforms. Many of these games are actually better on a tablet or a phone. There’s something very intimate about holding the "video" in your hands, almost like you’re looking through someone else’s camera roll.
The Future: AI and Hybrid FMV
What’s next? We’re starting to see a weird blend. Some developers are using AI to take real video and manipulate it in real-time, allowing for even more interactivity without the massive cost of filming a thousand different scenes. Imagine an FMV game where you can type anything to a character, and they respond using a "Deepfake" version of the actor's voice and face.
It’s a bit creepy, honestly. But it’s also the logical conclusion of that 1983 dream of "Interactive Movies."
The genre has survived the death of the arcade, the failure of the LaserDisc, the pixelated mess of the 90s, and the rise of hyper-realistic 3D. It stays because humans are hardwired to respond to other humans. We want to see faces. We want to see real emotion. As long as we have a curiosity about "what happens if I do this?" while watching a story unfold, full motion video games will have a place on our screens.
If you're looking for a place to start, go download Her Story. It's cheap, it runs on almost anything, and it will change how you think about what a "video game" can actually be. From there, dive into Immortality if you want something more surreal and complex. Just don't expect to win on your first try. That's never been the point of these games. The point is to get lost in the footage.
Next Steps for Enthusiasts:
- Explore the "Sam Barlow Trilogy": Start with Her Story, move to Telling Lies, and finish with Immortality to see the evolution of non-linear FMV storytelling.
- Check Wales Interactive’s Catalog: If you prefer more traditional "choice-based" thrillers, Late Shift or The Complex are the best entry points for a cinematic experience.
- Watch the Documentary "The 100-Year Game": It provides a deep look into the making of Immortality and the sheer technical labor required to film a game.
- Try a "Zero-Gameplay" FMV: Experience Silencio or similar experimental shorts to see how the medium is being pushed into art-house territory.