Lore Cutscenes request

[Cilia]

What you're looking for are full motion videos (FMVs), cutscenes made out of engine. Due to the cost involved in making these, outside of intros and endings FMVs are used sparingly in games these days - even VII:R only has a handful. It's much more cost effective to make cutscenes in-engine.

... and, since this game doesn't really have an "ending" proper (yet, anyway) it's entirely understandable the only FMVs it regularly gets are the expansion intros. Hell, even "Flames of Truth" is ultimately just an extension of the 1.X ending cutscene.

FMVs are a nice treat, but never expect one to show up outside of the intro and ending.

[Enkidoh]

What you're looking for are full motion videos (FMVs), cutscenes made out of engine. Due to the cost involved in making these, outside of intros and endings FMVs are used sparingly in games these days - even VII:R only has a handful. It's much more cost effective to make cutscenes in-engine.

... and, since this game doesn't really have an "ending" proper (yet, anyway) it's entirely understandable the only FMVs it regularly gets are the expansion intros. Hell, even "Flames of Truth" is ultimately just an extension of the 1.X ending cutscene.

FMVs are a nice treat, but never expect one to show up outside of the intro and ending.

^This. In particular, the ARR 'End of an Era/New Beginning/'Flames of Truth' (the Coil ending) trailer apparently alone cost SE Visual Works over $3 million US to produce (of course given how successful ARR has been and continues to be, that cost ended up being made back quickly, thus making it money well spent).

Also, specifically in regards to Coil, the whole raid series itself was meant to be the resolution to what was shown in End of an Era/New Beginning - revealing how Bahamut was defeated and what happened to Louisoix, so it made sense it was a prerendered FMV rather than just a cutscene made using the in game engine (it also clearly fits into the space between where 'End of an Era' finishes, and 'A New Beginning' picks up 'five years later'). Other raids don't have that direct connection to the opening scenes so no FMV endings for completing them (well, maybe Shadowbringers does have a connection with the Crystal Tower I suppose, but that was an old ARR raid and ShB's connection to it just picks up where it left off anyway).

[MoofiaBossVal]

^This. In particular, the ARR 'End of an Era/New Beginning/'Flames of Truth' (the Coil ending) trailer apparently alone cost SE Visual Works over $3 million US to produce (of course given how successful ARR has been and continues to be, that cost ended up being made back quickly, thus making it money well spent).

Do you know what interview this was said in? Was it an interview on Visual Works and the behind the scenes production of the trailer? I'd be interested in reading it, but a cursory Google search yielded no results.

[Enkidoh]

Do you know what interview this was said in? Was it an interview on Visual Works and the behind the scenes production of the trailer? I'd be interested in reading it, but a cursory Google search yielded no results.

Unfortunately no, I do recall the info came from the old Alpha/Beta tester forum around 2012/2013, and because that forum is long gone (and was restricted access to only testers), I have no record of that alas (which would explain the lack of citation from Google). I'm sorry I couldn't be more help (and, in hindsight, I think I might have to keep that info under "needs citation" for the time being).