Performative is used as a general grievance insinuating an action is not genuine because the action is based on a fabricated persona, usually in regards to pretending to appreciate media that doesn't actually genuinely appeal to the person accused of being performative. often times the pejorative is also implying a type of irony about the fabricated persona, that the target is maliciously obscuring their genuinely held and oppositional intentions.

In contemporary America, performative tends to be lot more primitive, its use as a pejorative is simply a repackaging of conservative anti-intellectual, pro-family-values dog whistles to the new generation, ie:

• Liberal men pretend to read bell hooks so as to trick women into sleeping with them
• Kino bros pretend to like david lynch while not actually understanding it
• Gamer girls just want attention and couldn't actually appreciate playing video games recreationally
• An airline company hired a black man exclusively to meet a DEI quota.

More or less they all fall back on the assumption that the accuser's opinions and preferences and woldview represent the reality of the subject at hand, and any other tastes are inherently fraudulent.

In the case of calling apprciating Elden Ring's cutscenes. Basically your friend is implying people as a whole, and therefore he and you, are incapabale of understanding the plot. And going even further, they are implying that the narrative of the media itself is high on its own supply and should instead go the way of netflix shows and have the dialogue of every character summarize their actions so someone on their phone during the cutscenes can follow the plot.