First vs. Third Person

tim-cain game-design camera first-person third-person rpg combat immersion

Abstract

Problem: When designing an RPG, should you use a first-person or third-person perspective? What are the trade-offs?

Approach: Tim Cain breaks down the concrete advantages of each viewpoint from a game design and production standpoint, drawing on his experience with Fallout, Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Pillars of Eternity.

Findings: First person excels at immersion, saves animation/modeling budget, simplifies camera logic, and suits stealth gameplay. Third person enables strategic/turn-based combat, party-based play, requires less detailed world objects, and gives the player a wider tactical view. The choice should not be made in isolation — it should emerge naturally from your design pillars, story, setting, and system mechanics.

Key insight: "I never chose the viewpoint for any of my games. My design chose it for me." The camera perspective is a consequence of design decisions, not a starting point.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBIdfazHxM4

Tim's Core Principle

Tim emphasizes that he has never started a game by choosing first-person or third-person. Instead, he designs the game's setting, story, and system mechanics first, and the appropriate viewpoint emerges naturally from those decisions. If you're struggling to decide between first and third person, you may not have finished designing your game yet.

Advantages of First Person

Immersion

First person is considered far more immersive because the player is the character. They walk, see, and interact with the environment directly. Some players require this and avoid third-person games entirely.

However, some players get motion sickness from first person — often caused by head bobbing or field-of-view settings. Choosing either perspective will cut out some portion of your audience.

Reduced Animation and Modeling Budget

In first person, the player only sees their character's hands, weapons, casting animations, and armor sleeves. You skip needing:

  • Full-body player character models
  • Walk/run animations
  • Interaction animations (opening chests, picking locks)
  • Weapon swap animations (the hand just drops out of view and returns with the new weapon)
  • Reload animations (optional — some show them, some don't)

This is a major production savings. Good animation takes a long time.

Simplified Camera Logic

The player's view and the player character's view are identical. This eliminates several complex problems:

  • No clipping decisions — you don't need line-of-sight calculations to decide whether to draw creatures behind walls. The GPU's Z-buffer handles it naturally.
  • No interior camera problems — in first person, you just walk inside a building. In third person, you need to rip the roof off, bring the camera inside, handle pillars blocking the view, etc.
  • No party visibility checks — no need to calculate whether any party member can see a given creature.

Stealth Gameplay

First person conveys stealth information naturally. The player knows when they're in a dark area because they see darkness. They hear their own footsteps. The player's sensory experience matches the character's, making stealth intuitive.

Advantages of Third Person

Lower Object Detail Requirements

Because the camera is pulled back, world objects can have fewer vertices and lower-resolution textures. This is a win-win:

  • Solo developers benefit because assets are easier to create
  • Larger teams can produce more variety in the same amount of time

Better Tactical View

The player sees the surrounding area — not just ahead, but to the sides and behind. This makes combat more strategic and gives the player better situational awareness.

Flexible Combat Systems

Third person supports real-time, turn-based, or hybrid combat (real-time with pause) equally well. Tim cites Arcanum as an example that had both real-time and turn-based modes.

Turn-based combat in first person is "a little awkward" and usually requires restrictions like grid movement (e.g., Legend of Grimrock). In third person, turn-based combat enables:

  • Precise measurement of ability ranges and areas of effect
  • Strategic planning (e.g., knowing your wizard needs two steps forward to bring a target into range)
  • Careful placement of area attacks (knowing exactly who's in your fireball)
  • Party arrangement and turn order as meaningful tactical decisions

Party-Based Play

Third person makes party gameplay easier because you can see all your characters at once. Benefits include:

  • Playing multiple character classes in a single playthrough
  • Taking on more or harder enemies
  • The game continues as long as any party member survives (unlike Fallout/Arcanum where the main character's death ends the game, Temple of Elemental Evil and Pillars of Eternity let you keep playing if anyone lives)

Tim's Recommendation

Choose first person if your game wants the player as the character, immersion is a design pillar, you prefer real-time combat, and you lack the animation budget for full character animations.

Choose third person if you want party-based play, turn-based or flexible combat systems, strategic ability usage with precise ranges and area effects, and your design pillars emphasize tactical depth.

The viewpoint should fall naturally out of your design decisions about setting, story, and system mechanics. If it doesn't, revisit those decisions.

Terminology Note

Tim clarifies that for this discussion, "third person" means any perspective where you can see the player character — whether over-the-shoulder, isometric, trimetric, or any other projection type. He notes he used to incorrectly call Fallout's projection "cavalier oblique" when it's actually trimetric, and mentions a separate video on projection types.

Personal Anecdote

Tim's finger was in a splint during filming because he'd been playing 8-12 hours of games per day for work and fun. His doctor told him, "Mr. Cain, you're in your 50s. You can't be playing video games for 8 to 12 hours a day." Tim's eloquent response: "Shut up."

References