Oners (Gaming)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Monday, June 10, 2019, 17:15 (2084 days ago) @ Cody Miller

God Of War did their entire game in “one shot,” if you ignore going into menus.

It’s neat, but it absolutely doesn’t seem worth all the extra work they talk about having to do to make it happen. In fact, if they hadn’t heavily marketed that aspect, I suspect wouldn’t have noticed.

I mean… you're eliminating a really powerful tool (the cut) when you do it for everything.

That can be the case, but I feel like oners have a strength for mood. In the Halo trailer, it's to highlight the slowness of the scene's pace, and the claustrophobic nature of the interior.

They are also a really powerful tool for things like building tension or a sense of desperation, such as the way Alfonso Cuaron uses them in film, and the entirety of the Stranger's visit in God of War.
Actually, if you think about it, God of War is (as weird as it is to say) a collection of oners linked together by a lack of cuts. The pacing between is generally excellent, and the camera work becomes very involved in the cinematography of the scenes (unlike say, Dead Space, where it's always passively over Isaac's shoulder).

I've been seeing these long takes more and more in gaming (Uncharted 4 was loaded with them, but because there were so many "normal" cutscenes, and so many flow seamlessly between gameplay and cutscene, it may be easy to miss).