2.5D (2.5d) group info

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2.5D

Games that use mixed 2D and 3D rendering, usually with some of the objects or the game world seen as polygon meshes and others as regular sprites.

2.5D has many different meanings, but for our purposes, the mixing of 2D and 3D rendering is the only interesting one as it's a case our display type can't describe (limited to either/or, no cases of and).

For other cases of 2.5D, the term pseudo-3d could be introduced to cover them if there's interest in that sort of stuff.

Extremely common in FPS games until fully 3D games started appearing (with the dawn of 3D accelerators), using 3D for the levels themselves but the masses of monsters with simple sprites, giving high maneuverability while maintaining performance by using simple sprites for the monster hordes.

Many early 3D adventure games used this as well, but in reverse: pre-rendered backgrounds with 3D character models, giving more possibilities on playing out the character (giving them more personality and humanizing them a bit more) while giving highly detailed environments, although limited ability to freely survey them.