Long takes and video games: when God of War and Metal Gear reinterpret Scorsese
Everything you'll learn : why video game teams have embraced the cinematic one-shot aesthetic, how Kojima and then Barlog pushed it to the scale of an entire game, and what this conversation between two mediums says about the future of visual storytelling.
Summary
What the long take brings to a narrative
Metal Gear Solid V (2014-2015): Kojima leads the way
God of War (2018): The entire game as a single cinematic shot
Resident Evil 7: First-person view taken to the extreme
Hellblade: The camera as an emotional tool
The reverse influence: what cinema learns from video games
FAQ
Introduction
Think of the Copacabana scene in Goodfellas. One take. Three minutes. The camera follows Henry Hill from the service entrance to his table, through the kitchen, the hallways, without ever cutting. You're not watching the scene, you're in the scene.
This is exactly what Cory Barlog, creative director of God of War (2018), wanted to recreate. But on the scale of an entire 20- to 30-hour game. Zero visible cuts. Zero crossfades. A single continuous take, from the opening screen to the end credits.
What few people know is that another Japanese author paved the way four years earlier: Hideo Kojima, with Metal Gear Solid V. And behind these two games lie the same cinematic references: Hitchcock's Rope , Iñárritu's Birdman , and Cuarón 's Children of Men . The long take no longer belongs solely to cinema. Development teams have adopted it as a directing philosophy, for reasons identical to those of Scorsese, Iñárritu, or Cuarón: to create a sense of presence, maintain tension, and deny the player any escape.
This article is aimed at film buffs curious about the video game medium, directors looking for unexpected sources of inspiration, and all those who think that the boundary between cinema and video games is being negotiated shot by shot.
1. What the long take brings to a narrative
The long take creates immersion through continuity. When the camera doesn't cut, time flows in real time. No narrative compression, no saving cuts to spare the viewer's attention. The spectator, or the player, is trapped in the moment.
In cinema, the effect is well documented: attention builds, vigilance takes hold. You know every second counts because there will be no editing to rearrange reality. In Children of Men (Cuarón, 2006), the car attack scene is unbearable precisely because it doesn't cut. No cuts to relieve the viewer's attention.
Video games have understood that this tension works with amplified effectiveness in their medium. Because the player is already an actor in the scene, they control the character. A camera that doesn't cut reinforces this continuity of identity. You're not just in the scene: you are the scene.
Pro tip : For directors wondering about the use of the long take, watching the camera in God of War is an excellent lesson. It never tries to "show," it accompanies. The difference between a spectacular camera and a camera that feels right.
2. Metal Gear Solid V (2014-2015): Kojima leads the way
Before God of War, there was Kojima. And before Kojima, there was Hitchcock.
In 2014, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes opened with a continuous shot that seamlessly blended cinematic and gameplay. The following year, The Phantom Pain systematized this technique in its main cutscenes: a handheld camera, at shoulder height, follows Big Boss like an invisible operator embedded at his side.
Kojima has been very clear about his sources. On Twitter, he explicitly cites the film he just rewatched before designing this camera: Rope (1948), presented at the time as a single, continuous shot. He also mentions Birdman and 's Children of Men , which he places at the top of his list of references. His wording is striking: MGSV consists almost entirely of one shot, from opening to closing, with the player's input being the only variable.
The intention is consistent with the series' DNA. Metal Gear Solid V presents itself as a realistic stealth simulator. Player freedom is central. A camera that never cuts between cutscenes and gameplay reinforces this freedom: nothing is taken from you, nothing happens "while you're not looking." The world is a continuum.
What makes Kojima a pioneer is that he made this choice at a time when no other big-budget game had tempted him. Barlog himself acknowledged this: when his team started working on God of War, they had no reference game to study this type of camera system. They had to "move forward by faith." Kojima had opened a path; Barlog broadened it.
Pro tip : MGSV 's handheld camera shakes, zooms, and pulls back when an explosion occurs, as if a documentary cameraman were on board. It borrows less from fiction cinema than from cinéma vérité—the same grammar that the Dardenne brothers or Paul Greengrass established in social dramas and thrillers.
Key takeaway : Metal Gear Solid V is the true pioneer of the "one-shot game." Kojima cites Hitchcock, Iñárritu, and Cuarón, and lays the groundwork that God of War would later develop on an entire game scale.
3. God of War (2018): the entire game as a single cinematic shot
This is probably the most radical example in video game history. God of War (2018, Santa Monica Studio) is designed as a single, continuous take. There are no cuts between cutscenes and gameplay. No fade-outs between areas. No visible ellipses. From the opening to the end credits, the camera never leaves Kratos.
Five years of development. A team that long believed it was impossible. Barlog recounted that 40% of his colleagues didn't understand the decision and only came around after playing the finished product. One of his statements perfectly sums up the difficulty: getting five actors to perform a four-and-a-half-minute scene without any cuts, then directly integrating that performance into the game engine.
Barlog cited his inspirations during his conference at Devcom 2018: Rope , Birdman , but also Hard Boiled , from which he noted the ability to mix action and narrative without ever changing plans.
Technically, it's a colossal challenge. The transitions between environments—abysses of light, narrow corridors, doorways—are all designed to mask what would normally be a loading screen. The camera remains at shoulder height, behind Kratos, as if you were a second character who never leaves the scene. Dori Arazi, the virtual cinematographer, summed up the game's visual language as a blend of Saving Private Ryan and The Revenant, with a touch of the Coen brothers. Handheld, wide-angle, shot "from within the action" rather than from above.
When Kratos speaks to Atreus, there's no classic shot-reverse-shot. The camera remains within the space of the two characters, circling them as in a real conversation. This constraint forced the screenwriting team to rewrite their habits: it was impossible to use "cut to" in a script, impossible to discreetly reposition the actors between shots. Every movement had to be deliberate, every transition organic.
Pro tip : The idea of "one-shot gameplay" isn't just a marketing gimmick. It forces the entire team—level design, dialogue, direction—to think in terms of spatial continuity. A director who adopts this constraint on a short shoot will immediately see the decisions it necessitates. The writers of God of War had to stop writing "cut to"—remove that word from your storyboards and you'll see the difference.
Key takeaway : God of War proves that a strong artistic constraint — zero visible cuts over twenty hours of gameplay — can become the driving force behind all other creative decisions in a project.
4. Resident Evil 7: First-person view for total immersion
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (Capcom, 2017) takes a different approach: first-person perspective. You see exactly what Ethan Winters sees. His hands opening a door. His feet in puddles. His breathing quickening in the corridor.
This is a major gamble for the franchise. After the critical lukewarm reception of Resident Evil 6, Capcom had to rethink everything. In 2013, an initial version of the game still followed the action-oriented path of its predecessor. It wasn't working. Producer Masachika Kawata and director Koushi Nakanishi finally made a decision: a return to survival horror roots, a single location, and a first-person perspective. The stated inspiration isn't Silent Hill , but a film— Evil Dead (1981), renowned for its intensely subjective camera work and its pervasive sense of fear.
To dispel any doubt: this decision was made before VR was even considered. VR came later, in October 2015, with a dedicated team. The shift to first-person perspective wasn't a technological gimmick; it was a narrative choice.
The subjective camera is a classic tool in horror cinema. Halloween (1978) used it from the very beginning, and The Blair Witch Project (1999) made it an integral part of the genre. The idea is simple: if you see what the character sees, you feel what they feel.
In RE7, this creates a constant sense of claustrophobia. You can't see what's behind you. You have to turn around to check. The slightest noise to the right of the screen triggers a real physical response in the player—not because the image is terrifying in itself, but because you're in it.
What Capcom understood is that first-person perspective doesn't work the same way in film and video games. In a movie, the first-person camera remains distant in a certain way: you watch it on a screen. In a game, the player controls the camera, directs it, chooses where to look. The tension is no longer experienced, it's anticipated. Often, that makes it even more painful.
The commercial gamble was risky. Capcom hoped for 4 million sales at launch; the game sold 2.5 million in its first month and surpassed 5 million within 23 months. This was enough to establish the first-person perspective as a lasting signature of the "Village" branch of the series. Resident Evil Village (2021) and Resident Evil 9 continue down this path.
Key takeaway : RE7 demonstrates that first-person perspective works differently in video games than in film. In the game, anxiety is amplified because you are the one choosing to look down the dark corridor.
5. Hellblade: The camera as an emotional tool
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Ninja Theory, 2017) is not a single-take shot in the strictest sense. But its camera philosophy has no equivalent in mainstream games of the time, and it deserves its place here for a specific reason: it proves that a continuous camera can also be a moral tool, not just a tool for creating tension.
The camera stays close to Senua. It almost never leaves her side. It observes. It trembles slightly. It moves closer to capture facial expressions in moments of psychological distress. This is the grammar of a documentary, or of the Dardenne brothers: a camera that doesn't comment, that accompanies.
The production context sheds light on this choice. Hellblade is a "triple-A independent" film—twenty people, a budget under $10 million. This is an order of magnitude lower than what a production of this visual standard normally requires. Ninja Theory compensated with ingenuity: the studio's conference room became their motion capture set, the stunts were performed by real technicians (Chloe Bruce, Daisy Ridley's stunt double in Star Wars: The Force Awakens), and the lead actress had no professional experience in the field.
Melina Juergens, who plays Senua, was an in-house video editor at the studio. She served as a stand-in for testing motion capture equipment. Her performance was deemed so convincing that Tameem Antoniades, the creative director, cast her in the role. She won the BAFTA for Best Actress in 2018.
Ninja Theory collaborated with the Wellcome Trust and Professor Paul Fletcher, a psychiatrist at Cambridge, to accurately portray psychosis. The voices Senua constantly hears were recorded in binaural sound—these voices follow you, swirling around your head if you play with headphones. The camera is part of this intention. It doesn't look down on Senua, it doesn't judge her. It's with her, in the same confusion, in the same difficult space.
For a director, it's a direct lesson in camera distance as a moral tool. Moving away from a character creates emotional distance. Staying close means choosing empathy. The decision is never neutral.
Pro tip : Observe how Ninja Theory handles the transitions between fight scenes and dialogue moments in Hellblade. The camera doesn't change depending on the action; it remains just as close, just as attentive, whether it's a fight or an inner breakdown. That's what consistent direction is all about.
Key takeaway : Hellblade proves that a video game camera can be a moral tool, not just a technical one.
6. The reverse influence: what cinema learns from video games
The question in the other direction is less frequently asked, but just as interesting: does video game influence cinema in return?
The short answer: yes, and increasingly so.
Hardcore Henry (2015, Ilya Naishuller) fully embraces the first-person perspective of video games. The entire film was shot with a GoPro camera mounted on the main character's head. The result is explicitly inspired by FPS (First-Person Shooter) games. It is video games that inform the cinematic language, not the other way around.
The most discussed case remains 1917 (2019). Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins conceived the film as a single, long take, with a few invisible cuts. Mendes himself acknowledged the connection to video games: he recounted watching his children play Red Dead Redemption 2 and finding the sensation "hypnotic." One of his statements in the Financial Times sums up his position: in life, we don't live in cuts, we live continuously. Editing, he says, is artifice.
More subtly, directors like Chad Stahelski (John Wick) acknowledge the influence of action game choreography on their approach to fight sequences. The long, uncut shot that follows a character through an action scene is also a borrowing from the spatial continuity inherent in video games.
Cary Fukunaga, with the iconic six-minute tracking shot in True Detective season 1 (“Who Goes There,” 2014), had already established this grammar in prestige television fiction—a raid on a New Orleans neighborhood filmed in a single take, which several critics explicitly compared to a video game level. The series was released the same year as Ground Zeroes. This was no coincidence; it reflected the spirit of the times.
And then there are the adaptations. The Last of Us season 1 (HBO, 2023) is a direct adaptation of a video game. Cinematographer Eben Bolter explained that, in many scenes, they deliberately reused the camera placement from the original game when it was already functional. Naughty Dog had done the cinematic work; HBO simply had to follow it. It's an open conversation between two mediums observing each other.
In this context, the long take has become a common language. A way of saying: here, nothing will be cut to spare your feelings.
FAQ
Is God of War's "single shot" truly continuous, or are there hidden tricks? There are micro-transitions during narrow passages or doorways, used to mask loading times. Technically, these aren't perceived cuts, but they're not a continuous shot in the strict cinematic sense either. The artistic intention is that of the long take: no visible break in the player's experience. God of War Ragnarok (2022) continues this principle.
Is Metal Gear Solid V really earlier than God of War in this respect? Yes. Ground Zeroes was released in 2014, The Phantom Pain in 2015. God of War was released in 2018. Barlog even admitted to not having a reference game available at the start of production, which suggests he didn't systematically study MGSV. Both authors independently converged on the same cinematic references: Hitchcock, Iñárritu, Cuarón.
Does Resident Evil Village continue this approach? Yes, Resident Evil Village (2021) retains the first-person perspective for its main sequences, with a few sections in third-person view. Capcom has clearly adopted this camera philosophy as a signature of the "Village" branch of the series.
Are there other games that make notable use of the continuous camera? Several examples are worth noting. Firewatch (2016) uses a restrained, continuous camera that is never flashy, a clearly cinematic influence. Shadow of the Colossus (2005) offers shots of visual scope reminiscent of Terrence Malick. The Last of Us Part II (2020) includes sequences of remarkable length and continuity in its confrontation scenes. And Alan Wake 2 (2023), while not a single-take shot, pushes cinematic composition to a level rarely seen in the medium.
Is the long take in video games a lasting trend or a fad? It's a fundamental trend, linked to the narrative maturity of the medium. As development teams incorporate filmmakers, screenwriters, and professional actors, the demand for coherent and immersive storytelling grows. The continuous camera directly addresses this demand: it engages the player without creating any distance.
Can a director draw inspiration from God of War for their own film shoots? Absolutely. The "no visible cuts" constraint forces a rethinking of space, the actors' choreography, and the management of continuity. Try shooting a three-minute scene without cutting: you'll immediately see which decisions become self-evident.
Conclusion
Metal Gear Solid V, God of War, Resident Evil 7, Hellblade. Four games, four different ways of using the continuous camera. Four explicit borrowings from cinema — and four contributions in return to how we think about visual storytelling.
The long take isn't a technique reserved for movie theaters. It's a tool for creating a relationship between an image and the person watching or playing it. And in a medium where the player controls the camera, the continuity of the shot takes on an even more radical meaning: it's no longer the director who refuses to cut. It's you.
The boundary between cinema and video games does not disappear. It is negotiated, shot by shot.
👉 Find detailed analyses of the greatest long takes in world cinema on plan-sequences.com : from Scorsese's tracking shot in Goodfellas to Hitchcock's Rope , by way of Birdman , 1917 , and Children of Men . Subscribe to receive each new entry as soon as it's published, and join a community of film enthusiasts who reject editing as an excuse. Don't miss any new entries.
