Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Become Human promises to be the studio’s biggest project yet, with incredibly detailed facial animations, branching story paths, and morally ambiguous characters. It’s poised to be one of the biggest PlayStation 4 exclusives this year, and we’ll only have to wait until May to get our hands on it.
“Detroit is by far the most ambitious title ever created by Quantic Dream,” said writer and director David Cage in the announcement. “With this game, we wanted to push our limits by creating the most bending game we have ever made. Your actions have real and spectacular consequences.”
Detroit: Become Human follows three separate protagonists: a prototype investigator android named Connor, a fugitive android named Kara, and android revolutionary Markus. As with the studio’s previous games like Heavy Rain, you must be very careful with your choices in order to keep the story going in the direction you want. At any point, any character can die, resulting in a much different final outcome.
“Each story is almost as unique as your DNA,” added Cage. “It is the result of the choices you made — the minor ones and the important ones — because in Detroit, all choices matter.”
Given Quantic Dream’s past track record, Cage means that. In Heavy Rain, endings could be vastly different depending on your actions with its various playable characters.
Quantic Dream hopes its use of an advanced game engine and full performance capture will contribute to the quality of its story, which concerns what it means to be “human” as well as the role of A.I. and technology in today’s world. It’s new ground for the studio, though not necessarily for video games. Last year’s Nier: Automata touched on some of the same themes, albeit in a far-future setting rather than one that resembles our current world.
Detroid: Become Human releases exclusively for PlayStation 4 on May 25. If you’re interested in playing Quantic Dream’s previous games, both Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls are available on PlayStation 4 as a remastered two-pack. The two games were originally released on PlayStation 3, with the former title receiving glowing reviews from critics and consumers alike.
