I don't think that we'll ever see pre-rendered cutscenes go away permanently. As in-engine rendering improves, AAA games will likely move away from pre-rendered cutscenes but AAA games are far from the only games that use cutscenes and have engines that can render high quality cinematic visuals (e.g. high resolution high quality character models performing high quality animations and visual effects).
Smaller budget titles and/or titles with smaller teams will still likely lean on pre-rendered cutscenes (e.g. mobile, consoles with weaker hardware specs, indie games) for important parts. Certain genres of games (e.g. those with engines that aren't designed to render and animate high quality humanoid character models) will also probably stick to pre-rendered cutscenes like 4X/strategy games, card games, simulation games (e.g. Flight Simulator), rhythm games, puzzle games, and so on. It isn't impossible and exceptions to rules certainly exist, but the need for in-engine cinematic support in these kinds of titles is generally much lower. It's much easier to outsource to a studio like Blur to do it for you than build engine support for it without adding a very expensive story mode to the game.
[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]
Got a burning question you want answered?
- Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
- Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
- Frequent Questions: The FAQ