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Chinese gaming giant grabs stake in 'Detroit' studio Quantic Dream
China's NetEase may be struggling to get its games whitelisted in its native country, but that isn't stopping it from making waves in the wider gaming industry. The internet giant's gaming unit has acquired a minority stake in David Cage's studio Quantic Dream, best known for its cinematic PlayStation exclusives Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human, both of which incorporate interactive storytelling techniques and motion capture technology. According to NetEase, Quantic Dream will continue to operate independently under the leadership of its co-CEOs Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière.
PS4's 'Detroit' doesn't take place in the Motor City I know
When Sony debuted Detroit: Become Human at E3 two years ago, writer-director David Cage said he and his team were taking great care to respect Motown's heritage, its people and what they've been through. "When you set your story in a specific city, it's a very sensitive thing to do," he told me. "You don't want to do it if you're not respectful of the place, of the people living there." I've seen how games like Persona 5 and the Yakuza series have faithfully reproduced their Japanese settings, and I was excited to explore his digital Detroit. Unfortunately, my expectations were set too high.
PS4 exclusive 'Detroit' is a flawed depiction of race in America
Detroit: Become Human begins with a warning: "This is not a story, this is our future." Writer-director David Cage's follow-up to Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls weaves a tale about robots attempting to transcend their programming. But rather being a thoughtful, philosophical examination of consciousness, Detroit, instead, is a tone-deaf look at race.
Test your hostage negotiation skills in ‘Detroit: Become Human’ demo
Detroit: Become Human is out at the end of next month, but you can get a taste of it today. The PlayStation 4 exclusive has a demo out today on the PlayStation Network Store (where else would it be?). It might look a little familiar if you've been paying attention to the game, too, centering on the hostage negotiation scene from the game's E3 debut two years ago. Last year, press at the show got to go hands on with this section, searching a glitzy Motor City high-rise apartment for clues and evidence before dealing with a rogue robot nanny holding a gun to his charge's head.
'Detroit: Become Human' will arrive on PS4 May 25th
Come May 25th you'll be able to explore David Cage's vision of the Motor City in Detroit: Become Human. When the game debuted in 2015, there wasn't even a release window, but with each successive trade show, the game's path toward your home became a little clearer. Last fall, Sony said the game would be out sometime this spring. Well, May is definitely in that window. What isn't? Spider-Man, which now seems likely to be one of Sony's AAA tentpoles for this autumn. If a choose-your-own-adventure tale replete with permadeath and a story about humanity's decline is a bit heady for you this time of year, there's always God of War which will be released on April 20th.
Explore PlayStation 4's 'Detroit: Become Human' next spring
At E3 this year we finally got to play the latest game from David Cage and Quantic Dream, Detroit: Become Human, but didn't have an idea of when we'd get to do so at home. That's changed a bit. Along with a powerful new trailer showing what happens when one of the game's androids witnesses domestic violence, now we know that the game will come out sometime next spring. That's soon!
Playing witness to an android riot in 'Detroit: Become Human'
I don't know when I'll get to play Detroit: Become Human again. The latest game from David Cage's Quantic Dream studio (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls) conspicuously didn't have a release date, or, hell, even a release year when Sony showed off a brand new demo at its media briefing earlier this week. Behind closed doors I was shown an extended version of the stage demo and saw just how an android riot starts.
PS4's 'Detroit' couldn't have taken place anywhere else
"When you set your story in a specific city, it's a very sensitive thing to do," said David Cage, the director of the upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive Detroit: Become Human. "You don't want to do it if you're not respectful of the place, of the people living there." Cage's next game with studio Quantic Dream deals with a near-future world where androids aren't a mobile operating system for your phone; instead they're "living" among us with hopes and desires of their own. Specifically? Transcending their circuitry and, as the name suggests, being human.
'Detroit' is Quantic Dream's debut PS4 game
Detroit is bouncing back from some absolutely devastating economic times, but Detroit from Quantic Dream exists in an altogether different timeline. The team behind Heavy Rain is using the Motor City and its manufacturing legacy as a backdrop for its tale of an AI with human emotions, and the game is an extension of the studio's "Kara" demo from a few years back. Aside from that, lead David Cage didn't give an awful lot of info. Considering the studio's pedigree, it isn't too much of a stretch to assume the game will be highly cinematic, but that could also be a detriment. After all, the team's last game, Beyond: Two Souls looked great in demos too, but fell a bit flat in terms of actual gameplay. Become Human isn't the first time a game about androids and AI's been set in Motown -- Deus Ex: Human Revolution did that back in 2011.
Heavy Rain creator details the difficulties of game engines and what he hopes the future holds
Heavy Rain development studio Quantic Dream is notorious for long development times. The studio's also notorious for critically-loved games with strong cinematic cores, and games that often look very different from the competition. Part of that is game design, but another major piece of the puzzle is the engines driving those games -- each game that Quantic Dream makes is built in a unique game engine, which is both very expensive and very time-consuming. The studio's founder and lead, David Cage, explained as much to us in an interview at DICE 2013. "Quantic Dream is a very special company in the sense that we do a lot of things that wouldn't make any sense in any other company. We haven't done any sequels so far, we work on new IPs each time. And we pretty much develop a new engine each time we develop a new game." But Cage doesn't harbor much love for that last part -- the game engine bit. He says that his studio opted out of the current console generation's game engine of choice (Unreal Engine 3) because, "we work with Sony, [and] we want to create the best technology for the hardware and see how far we can go." As a result, even Cage's latest work (Beyond: Two Souls) is crafted in a new engine -- the same one used to build the Kara demo we saw last March -- intended to show off the PlayStation 3's late-generation graphical and processing chops. Yes, even with the next PlayStation (codenamed "Orbis") waiting in the wings, his second-party Sony studio is still showing off the aging PS3's prowess. Beyond: Two Souls is more than just a showpiece, of course, with Quantic Dream employing actress Ellen Page to motion performance-capture the game's main character, and the same emphasis on storytelling the studio's practiced previously. Still, Cage hopes for a future where technology isn't something he and his studio need be concerned with.
Heavy Rain creators produce 'Kara' PS3 tech-demo (video)
Heavy Rain creator David Cage was showing off Quantic Dream's new game engine at GDC, which includes an innovative new performance-capture technology the company's developed. He's directed a seven-minute original short called Kara, which is the story of a female android as she becomes self-aware. Unlike traditional game production methods, this technology is able to record face and body movements at the same time as recording the actors voice -- ensuring natural and consistent performances from the characters. Actress Valorie Curry wore 90 sensors on her face, unlike in, say, Avatar, where the performers wore head-mounted cameras. Cage promises that the short is nothing more than a demo (it was rendered in real-time on a PlayStation 3) and none of these elements will appear in his next game. You can catch the impressive-looking footage after the break with one disclaimer: there's nudity throughout and a reference to adult themes, okay?
Sony partners with Quantic Dream on exclusive PS3 title
Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios today announced a collaboration with Paris-based developer Quantic Dream, one which promises to "redefine cinematic real-time entertainment" with a new PlayStation-exclusive title. Judging by Quantic Dream's past efforts in David Bowie dystopia sim, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, or the multi-angle murder mystery Fahrenheit (dubbed Indigo Prophecy in America), cinematic presentation and integral narratives seem du jour on the developer's list of goals. Quantic Dream President and CEO, David Cage commented on the choice of console and the sheer pleasantness of the folks at Sony. "We always believed that "next generation" meant more meaningful content based on players' emotional involvement. To us, PS3 is the only platform that can truly deliver on this promise, and SCE WWS is a group that is both inspiring and pleasant to work with." Though the name of the upcoming PS3 game isn't specified and could very well be an entirely new game, Quantic Dream's website currently lists Heavy Rain as a "confidential next generation console game." The film-like poster above, which bears the subtitle "The Origami Killer," certainly seems to highlight the title's cinematic aspirations, if not the question of why anybody would want to murder folded pieces of paper. What did they ever do to you?Venture into the Uncanny Valley after the break to see Heavy Rain's impressive and quietly disturbing E3 2006 Virtual Actor demonstration. If the announced collaboration turns out to be a different game entirely, we fully encourage the parties involved to step into the rain and scream, "Gotcha, suckas!"[Via Sony press release]
