FMV

FMV (full-motion video) games incorporate live-action performances heavily within their visual styles. Often, these incorporations can come in the form of acted-out cinematics in the place of cutscenes or character sprites consisting of photographs of actors. FMV games often have overlap with with interactive movie and point-and-click adventure games, in which the first consists of the vast majority of the game consisting of a live-action film broken up by occasional interaction, such as in Night Trap (1992), and the second which heavily incorporates photographic character sprites in addition to fully acted cutscenes, such as in Harvester (1996).

The genre's proliferation has been tied to innovations in digital media technology, with an emergence in the early 80s with LaserDisc technology and early 90s with optical disc technology. The style's popularity has been largely considered a fad, and FMV-style cutscenes and presentation fell out of popularity in wake of the increased fidelity offered by computer generated imagery due to technological advancements. However, following the release of Her Story (2015), there has been a small revival of indie games which utilize the storytelling techniques of FMV games.