QTEs are often used during dramatic cutscenes. Resident Evil 4 uses QTEs (described by cinematics lead Yoshiaki Hirabayashi as an "action button system") to "facilitate a seamless transition between gameplay and the in-game movies" and prevent players from losing interest during cutscenes. One example in Resident Evil 4 is a knife fight. The fight occurs during a late-game cutscene where the protagonist meets a major villain, who explains missing links in the game's story while periodically slashing at the protagonist and requiring the player to quickly press a button to parry him. As the action takes place during the major revelation of the game, the QTE serves to prevent the player from skipping over the cutscene. While this example is considered to use QTEs effectively, punctuating the heated discussion between the characters with rapid player reactions, it also demonstrates a common failing with the mechanism, in that if the player should miss a QTE, the protagonist will be killed, and the player must restart the cutscene and the fight from the start. Because of the likelihood of player death, the phrase "Press X to not die" has become synonymous with the use of QTEs in game. Furthermore, when a QTE is used during such a scene, the player's attention is drawn away from the animation and instead to the area of the screen where the button control indicator would appear, rendering the effort put into animating the scene meaningless.
