Quantic Dream’s games are a guilty pleasure of mine – I enjoyed Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain for many reasons. Heavy Rain was one of the first games to really give you this organic feeling of consequence, forcing you to think on your feet while calculating the good and bad of each decision you made.
Detroit: Become Human still gives you that, while giving you this opportunity to slow down and put all the pieces of a mystery together. Between reconstructing scenes and unlocking more through taking the time to look through every nook and cranny, Detroit hits a new high with the sense of investigating and unraveling a story.
While waiting for my turn to dive into the new “Stormy Night” demo, I got to observe other people play “Hostage.” Our very own Tony Polanco was playing the demo we saw at E3, and his ending was completely different from mine. Speaking with a dev from Quantic Dream, he told me they recognized how linear Beyond: Two Souls really was, and that the last four years of development were spent bringing back decisions and a plethora of possibilities. From what I have observed, it is almost safe to say no two players will have an identical experience with Detroit.
Before jumping into “Stormy Night,” I was told it was a “much more mature experience than ‘Hostage’ that is much faster paced.” You play a different android named Kara (who is very significant for a reason you may not be thinking of), who is in a home in a lower-income area. There’s a young girl named Alice at the dinner table, who seems quite troubled, with her father, Todd, in the living room, a drug addict who blames Alice’s mother leaving them on her.
You instruct Kara to let the family know dinner is ready, and go on to set food down on the table. While you [Kara] are getting the two situated at the dinner table, Alice’s father goes on a screaming rant about how androids ruined his life – they’re the reason why their lives were terrible, and why he was out of a job. This eventually leads to Todd flipping the table over, and Alice running away upstairs.
Todd instructs you not to move, but you’re still able to change the camera angle to see him pace around the living room (honestly, I was too scared to even try to move), take a few hits out of his crack pipe, and remove his belt. He demands Alice comes back downstairs and shows her father “some respect.” Once he stomps up the stairs, Kara has a new objective: protect Alice.
Without spoiling too much, this scene had a similar level of intensity as the nightmare scene with Madison in Heavy Rain. From the “Hostage” demo, this is an insane jump in pace, and shows the game’s flexibility with providing different levels of intense gameplay. “Stormy Night” can also end in a handful of different ways, and yes, any character can die, just like in Heavy Rain.
“Stormy Night” proves Detroit: Become Human is most definitely not for the faint of heart, and is a very organic and genuine experience which players from all kinds of backgrounds and upbringings can relate to.
There is no set release date yet, but the studio is aiming for a Spring 2018 release.
