Why Are Genshin Impact Cutscenes So Fast? (2025 Analysis)

Genshin Impact players have been puzzled by the seemingly rushed nature of the game's cutscenes since its launch. In 2025, this issue remains a hot topic among the community. What exactly causes these narrative moments to feel so fast-paced compared to the smooth gameplay experience? Let's dive into the technical reasons behind this jarring transition and explore potential solutions.

The Frame Rate Discrepancy

The most significant factor behind the question "why are Genshin cutscenes so fast?" is the stark contrast between gameplay and cutscene frame rates. While exploring Teyvat, players typically enjoy a buttery-smooth 60+ FPS experience. However, the moment a cutscene triggers, the game abruptly shifts to 30 FPS.

This technical decision wasn't made arbitrarily. Community data reveals rendering a 5-minute video at 60 FPS requires approximately 256 hours of processing time compared to 126 hours at 24-30 FPS. HoYoverse's choice represents a significant resource optimization, though at the cost of visual continuity.

Forced Dialogue Pacing

Another contributor to the rushed feeling is the game's dialogue system. Genshin Impact implements a 75% dialogue listening requirement, preventing players from advancing until they've heard most of each voiced line. This creates unnatural pauses that disrupt the flow, especially for fast readers who process text quicker than voice actors speak.

The Auto-Play Story mode, which many players use to mitigate this issue, comes with its own problems. It moves painfully slow with periodic AFK checks that further disrupt immersion. This combination of technical limitations and design choices creates what many players describe as a "stop-motion animation" effect during important narrative moments.

Platform-Specific Variations

The experience varies dramatically depending on your platform of choice. High-end PC users with powerful GPUs paradoxically have the most jarring experience - the contrast between their ultra-smooth gameplay and the locked 30 FPS cutscenes is especially pronounced.

Mobile players face different challenges, with thermal throttling causing additional performance issues during extended cutscene sequences. iOS users specifically encountered bugs showing incorrect cutscene displays throughout much of 2024, requiring multiple patches to resolve.

PS4 players should note that HoYoverse has announced support for the platform ends in April 2026, suggesting future cutscene optimizations will likely focus on newer hardware.

Troubleshooting Solutions That Actually Work

After extensive testing, here are some proven methods to improve the Genshin Impact cutscene experience:

1. Optimize graphics settings: Set graphics to High instead of Highest. This reduces frame rate fluctuations that make cutscenes appear even choppier.

2. Disable anti-aliasing during story sections: Cutscenes don't benefit significantly from this setting, and disabling it removes one potential source of performance hiccups.

3. Update graphics drivers regularly: GPU manufacturers frequently release game-specific optimizations that can improve cutscene transitions.

4. Monitor refresh rate adjustment: If you use a high refresh rate monitor (120Hz+), temporarily switching to 60Hz during story sessions makes the transition to 30 FPS cutscenes less jarring.

Language Selection Impacts Cutscene Perception

Interestingly, your choice of voice-over language significantly affects how cutscenes feel. After testing all available options:

• Chinese voice-over: Provides the most natural pacing since it's the original recording that animations were designed around

• Japanese voice-over: Often feels more expressive and faster-paced due to language characteristics

• English voice-over: Can feel artificially slow because localization teams must match mouth movements designed for Chinese dialogue patterns

• Korean voice-over: Falls somewhere between Japanese and English in terms of pacing

Many players report that using Japanese voice-over with English subtitles provides the best balance of natural timing and comprehension.

Community Workarounds

The Genshin community has developed some clever strategies to improve the cutscene experience:

1. Enable Auto-Play, then press the advance button once to display full text instantly while respecting animation timing

2. Lower graphics quality specifically during story-heavy sessions to create more consistent frame rates

3. Some players use third-party tools like 'GI-cutscenes' to extract video files for offline viewing at preferred speeds, though this approach exists in a gray area regarding Terms of Service

Hardware Considerations

If cutscene performance is particularly important to you, consider these hardware optimizations:

• Upgrading to an NVMe SSD significantly reduces loading stutters between gameplay and cutscenes

• Ensuring you have at least 16GB RAM in 2025 helps prevent memory-related stuttering

• Keeping your system's audio drivers updated can resolve synchronization issues between visuals and dialogue

Why This Design Choice Persists

Despite years of player feedback, HoYoverse has maintained the 30 FPS cutscene approach. This decision likely stems from several factors:

1. Resource optimization across multiple platforms

2. Maintaining consistent experience across diverse hardware capabilities

3. The immense localization challenge of synchronizing four voice languages with 15 text languages

While this technical limitation may never be fully resolved, understanding the reasons behind it can help set appropriate expectations for your Genshin Impact story experience.

Looking Forward

As we move through 2025, there are signs HoYoverse is working to improve cutscene fluidity. Recent patches have addressed missing voice lines, incorrect displays, and synchronization problems. The developer's continued investment in technical improvements suggests the cutscene experience might see gradual enhancements, even if the fundamental frame rate limitation remains.

Have you found your own methods for improving Genshin Impact cutscenes? The community continues to discover creative workarounds, showing just how passionate players remain about experiencing this beautiful world's story in the best possible way.

Understanding why Genshin Impact cutscenes are so fast doesn't completely solve the issue, but it does help players adjust their expectations and implement the best available solutions for a more enjoyable storytelling experience in Teyvat.