Deadly Premonition designer's D4 out on Xbox One tomorrow
Surprise! D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die, the cel-shaded mystery game from Deadly Premonition designer Hidetaka "Swery65" Suehiro, debuts on Xbox One tomorrow, September 19. The $15 downloadable marks the start of D4's episodic series, and Suehiro told Eurogamer it includes the prologue, first and second episodes. Later episodes are due at an undisclosed date.
If you've played 2010 psychological horror Deadly Premonition, you'll know some of what to expect from D4. Just as Suehiro's cult hit riffed on the surrealism of Twin Peaks, D4 looks to bring its own batch of weird to the party. You play as David Young, a detective who's lost his memory following the unsolved murder of his wife. However, the amnesic gumshoe has a special power up his sleeve: the ability to travel back to the past by touching certain objects.
Check out the launch trailer below the break.
"The initial inspiration was really simple," Suehiro told Xbox Wire. "I'm sure everyone has, at some point in their lives, thought about that one day in the past. "If I didn't make that one decision on that one day, would I have turned out differently? Would I be the same person that I am now?" I believe that these kinds of imaginative explorations – starting from a point in the past and stretching out into the present – is something that only humans are capable of. Nobody taught us to do that, but it's something everyone has experienced. Tackling themes like this, that are so close to the core, is very challenging and natural at the same time, for me."
While Kinect support is a core part of D4's design, the game can be played either using a controller or the Xbox One's motion sensor. In the action sequences the Kinect controls are based around things like colored arrows on the screen indicating a required swipe in that direction. In one of the opening sequences you're swipin' away to dodge attacks, using both hands to catch plates chucked at you, and blocking a live rat from being thrown into your mouth - or not, as Joystiq's Xav de Matos found out in his E3 preview:
"The entire encounter is played off as a gag. It isn't a vicious attack, it's a comical encounter that plays out in different ways, depending on whether or not a player is successful at executing gestures. Failing the rat gesture didn't result in a level failure. Catching the rat in David's teeth, while horrifying conceptually, is a funny moment.
"Even a quick glimpse at Swery's next game tells us fans of his work are in for more of the same: Off-the-wall characters in a world as bent as their own psyche. It's as weird as Deadly Premonition, which is exactly what Swery fanatics want."
[Image: Microsoft]
