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Rumor: Willem Dafoe co-starring in Beyond: Two Souls
Willem Dafoe is slated to co-star alongside Ellen Page in Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls, BroGamer reports, citing an anonymous source. Dafoe is known for his roles in movies such as Platoon, The Boondock Saints, Spider-Man and Antichrist.We reached out to Sony for clarification, and received the following response: "We don't typically comment on rumors or speculation about our products so nothing to share at this time."Quantic Dream announced Page's leading role at E3 this year and showed us an action-packed demo that highlighted the studio's performance-capture technology. During the demo, Quantic Dream's David Cage didn't hint at Dafoe making an appearance, though he did recall fondly his first experience in snagging a high-profile celebrity for one of his games:"I was fortunate enough to have worked with David Bowie on my first game," Cage said. "When you've done that in your career, you say, 'I can get anyone.'"Cage also confirmed that the police officer in Beyond's E3 trailer is portrayed by the same actor who played Paco, "the man with the strange jacket in the club," in Heavy Rain.
Beyond: Two Souls puts the 'act' back in 'action' with Ellen Page
Quantic Dream snagged actress Ellen Page for its new PS3 game, Beyond: Two Souls, and premiered a trailer during Sony's E3 press conference to show off her high-profile, performance-captured video game debut. Naturally, the video Quantic chose featured Page's character sitting absolutely still, not talking and looking like Sinead O'Connor's reaction gif to Two Girls One Cup.The demo Quantic Dream mastermind David Cage showed the press the following day went a long way to demonstrate Page's proficiency in a video game world, though it still didn't highlight any deep dialogue or empathetic scenes.Executive Producer Guillaume de Fondaumière played a half-hour action sequence filled with train-top rain battles, stealing motorcycles from cops and exploding helicopters -- but Beyond is much more than a single demo can contain."There is also emotion," Cage said. "We just showed you one walkthrough. But you could have played it in many different ways. In the entire scene, there are scenes inside the scenes that we didn't show you."Sceneception.
Here's that Beyond - Two Souls trailer you were waiting for [Update: Now with gallery!]
Quantic Dream's next project, Beyond – Two Souls, is looking just as good as we'd hoped. What's that? You wanna see for yourself? As it turns out, we've got the trailer just above. You should probably watch it a few times and tear it apart and then let us know about all the cool stuff you saw. Not that we're suggesting you do that or anything.%Gallery-156993%
Quantic Dream's next game is 'Beyond - Two Souls.' heading to PlayStation 3
Heavy Rain development studio Quantic Dream unveiled its next big PlayStation game tonight during Sony's press conference, dubbed "Beyond – Two Souls." for PlayStation 3. Studio head David Cage says it follows a young lady named Jodie Holmes across the course of her life, and she'll be played by actress Ellen Page.The gameplay clip shown off has the characteristic look of Quantic Dream's past work, except the gameplay seems to be far more action-heavy than past titles. We'll have the first look up as soon as its available, so keep an eye out!
Quantic Dream's Infraworld may not be canned after all, was possibly just frozen
Quantic Dream has been flirting with the title Infraworld, since 2006, when it was first reported as a canceled game, to 2010 when it made an appearance in Heavy Rain, to last year's US trademark filing from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.This year, a Quantic Dream title due out in 2013 has made an appearance in the biography of French actress Priscilla Liaud, and a studio concept artist has listed Infraworld and another oft-rumored title, Fiv5, in his LinkedIn profile (since removed).With E3 next week, Quantic Dream may be in the perfect position to take its Infraworld flirtation to the next level: eye contact and straightforward sentences. Our hearts are all a-flutter just thinking about it.
Behind the scenes of Quantic Dream's 'Kara' tech demo
Have you thought about just how Quantic Dream pulled off that "Kara" tech demo on the PS3? If your answer, like ours, was that they actually built a female android and taught it how to speak all those languages and sing, then you're wrong. They didn't do that at all. Female androids don't exist in real life. Sigh.No, instead they hired an actress named Valorie Curry (actually three different women -- Curry for acting, one for the German and French, and another to sing) to come in and do motion capture for the part, and refined and developed her performance over a series of about eight months before finally capturing it for the tech demo.You can see the whole process in the video above, and watch the original tech demo below. Yeah, we guess it's cool and all that they put so much care and work into such a quality video -- but not as cool as a real female android. Sigh again.
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?
Quantic Dream reveals new prototype, serves as the foundation for studio's future [Update: Now with video!]
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EU could lose tax breaks for game developers, threatens talent exodus
The European Union provides us a small-scale glimpse into the potential functions of a truly global society -- and more recently, a global society in crisis. The unified currency of the EU, the Euro, was on the brink of collapse recently and all of its member countries are still running damage control.Now, France in particular is facing another monetary hurdle, as its tax incentive for game development has expired and casued "genuine concern" the EU may not renew the exception that would reinstate it. State aid is normally forbidden under EU law, but in some cases it is allowed -- without an exception, game-development tax incentives would be banned in all EU countries, including France and the UK, Develop reports.French developer Quantic Dream (Heavy Rain) said that if the tax break is not reinstated it would relocate its operations to Canada, which does offer incentives for development companies, Develop adds. And according to TIGA, The UK's game-development workforce -- which sees no tax breaks -- fell 10 percent between 2008 and 2011, with 41 percent of its workers relocating overseas to countries such as Canada.
A third of Heavy Rain players kept all characters alive
Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream recently shared some player statistics with IGN about its 2010 interactive drama. Of the 3 million players who reportedly played the game, 74 percent completed the game. Of those, 33 percent of people must have gotten the "four heroes" trophy, surviving home invasions, sinister scenarios and angry junkyard mechanics to keep the game's quartet of protagonists alive and kicking. Here's a good takeaway for game developers seeking to implement multiple endings for their games: only four percent of players have seen all Heavy Rain's endings and only three percent earned the game's platinum trophy. However, 100 percent of future developers should "press X to Jason."
Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) now on GOG
Before Quantic Dream drenched us in Heavy Rain, it gave us the ambitious, story-driven Fahrenheit, now available on GOG.com for $6. Fahrenheit, known as Indigo Prophecy in North America, experimented with many of the techniques (and story elements) that ended up being refined in Quantic Dream's interactive novella on the PS3. Fahrenheit on GOG is the "uncut and uncensored version" of the game, not originally released in the States, which includes some interactive sex scenes. The real reason to play this game, however, is to watch an interesting, compelling premise go off the rails like a child star after an 18th birthday. A must-experience moment (of disappointment) for any future game writers.
Heavy Rain Director's Cut slated for November 8
Heavy Rain Director's Cut launches on November 8. In addition to scrapped content, the re-release also includes The Taxidermist DLC, the soundtrack, eight bonus making-of videos, a few themes, concept art and two trailers, PlayStation Blog reports. There's also a new front-end menu and UI with Move support. To celebrate the (re)launch, Sony's making the Heavy Rain Crime Scene Dynamic Theme available on PSN the same day. We're sure that'll fill the void in your heart left by the child you lost at the mall that one time. [Update: This post originally said the Director's Cut included the game's deleted scenes, which ... well, it doesn't. We apologize for the mistake, please don't drown us.]
Heavy Rain developer estimates $13M loss on second-hand sales
Quantic Dream co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumiere estimates the studio lost between €5 and €10 million ($6.8 and $13.7 million) worth of royalties on Heavy Rain because of used sales. "We basically sold to date approximately two million units, we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it," de Fondaumiere told GI.biz. "On my small level it's a million people playing my game without giving me one cent." The three million "bought" math sounds a little fuzzy, especially if one were to consider the rental market and friends borrowing games, but he seems to be on the right path. "Now are games too expensive?" de Fondaumiere continued, "I've always said that games are probably too expensive so there's probably a right level here to find, and we need to discuss this altogether and try to find a way to I would say reconcile consumer expectations, retail expectations, but also the expectations of the publisher and the developers to make this business a worthwhile business." We bet that's especially true when your game does better than your publisher ever expected.
Tamer version of Heavy Rain to be re-released in Europe [update]
PEGI, the European video games rating board, recently published an evaluation for Heavy Rain Edition Modifiée, an apparently toned-down version of Quantic Dream's interactive drama which will carry a PEGI 16 rating (marked down from the original's PEGI 18 rating). Little is known about the content or reasoning behind the new, minor-friendly version of the game, but as the PEGI rating mentions an August 3 release date, it'll probably start showing up on European store shelves soon. So, what's getting cut in the Edition Modifiée? According to the PEGI ratings, the original's "extreme violence" and "violence towards defenceless people" have been downgraded to "realistic-looking violence." We can't wait to see how this changes the game's more intense sequences. For instance, there's that one scene, during which you have five minutes to improvise a tool which you can use to cut your fingernails. Update: Looks like the tamer edition isn't releasing Europe-wide -- a Sony representative confirmed to Eurogamer that the new version "is just a small initiative for France only."
Canned Quantic Dream project 'Infraworld' trademarked by SCEE
Earlier this year, gaming industry sleuth Superannuation uncovered the possible monikers of two projects from Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream. The first was Fiv5, which showed up in a domain and European trademark registered by the developer. The second was Infraworld, a project the studio canceled in 2006. It later showed up as a Heavy Rain Easter egg, as well as a Quantic Dream hire's LinkedIn profile. Today, the latter name showed even more signs of life when it surfaced in a U.S. trademark filed by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe this past May. If Infraworld has indeed been saved from the Quantic Dream cutting room floor, it's possible that it follows the same style of Heavy Rain -- in March, David Cage explained that he wanted to build on his treasured "Interactive Drama" genre. That's still a pretty broad set of expectations, though one thing's for sure: Bizarre and unplaceable accents are pretty much a lock.
David Cage: L.A. Noire mocap tech interesting, but limited
Just about every human being that's laid eyes on the eerily accurate visages of L.A. Noire have had roughly the same reaction of shock and awe. Every human being, that is, except for Quantic Dream's David Cage, who spoke to CVG about Team Bondi's mocap process, saying, "I think it's an interesting solution to a problem for now." He later expounded, "Their technique is incredibly expensive and they will never be able to shoot body and face at the same time." Cage revealed that Quantic Dreams is leveraging just that kind of tech for an unannounced title, saying, "We see a huge difference between shooting the face and body separately and shooting everything at the same time. Suddenly you've got a real sense of acting that is consistent." Well, there's our first hint about the studio's follow-up to Heavy Rain: Its characters will have both faces and bodies. Not one or the other, as was the case in Quantic's earlier, far more upsetting game, The Disembodied Faces vs. The Disemfaced Bodies.
Heavy Rain director encourages more 'personal' stories
Speaking to The Guardian about storytelling in games, Heavy Rain director Cage singled out the FPS genre -- its use of WWII and sci-fi settings in general -- as an example where that aspect of the medium is stagnating. His advice for other game writers: " Don't write about being a rookie soldier in WWII, because you don't have a clue what that's like." Heavy Rain has drawn accolades, Cage says, because the inspiration for its story is personal and relatable. "Talk about yourself, your life, your emotions, the people around you, what you like, what you hate," he advised. "This is how the industry will make a huge step forward. I'm fed up with space marines." In his case, inspiration came from something much more down to earth. "It was not about space marines fighting aliens, it was about my relationship with my first son and how he changed my life –- and also about how loving someone without expecting anything in return was something totally new." So, Modern Warfare 3 writers: instead of "how many people can you shoot?," why not try asking players "how many people would you shoot to save someone you love?"
'Fiv5' could be the title of Quantic Dreams' next game
David Cage, director of the soggy serial killer interactive drama Heavy Rain, has already said there won't be a sequel to that game, telling the PlayStation Blog, "We're going to be exploring a different direction, which will still be very dark and still for adults, but completely different to Heavy Rain" for Quantic Dreams' next project. That game's specifics may be a secret, but it may have a title: "Fiv5" ... yes, in the style of David Fincher's film Se7en. Gaming trademark sleuth superannuation has turned up several clues supporting this theory, including a trademark filing with Europe's Office of Harmonization for the International Market. There's also a domain name registration by Quantic Dream, and a new hire at the developer has listed themselves as "Concept Artist: Video Game "FIVE" & "INFRAWORLD" on LinkedIn. Infraworld? Where'd we put our deerstalker hat and magnifying glass?
Mega 64 spoofs Heavy Rain, makes all of us uncomforJAAAASOOON
Yes, Mega64's (second) spoof of Heavy Rain features one of the guys wandering through a mall on a very vocal hunt for Jason -- but that's not all. It also contains some of the most cringe-worthy moments of social discomfort that the troupe has ever, ever managed to elicit.
Quantic Dream renovates mocap studio
A lot of times game journalists complain that December is light on news, with all the big releases for the year behind us. But we've always thought they were just a bunch of Negative Nancys. In an industry as robust and busy as ours, how tough can it be to find something to write about? ... So, umm ... Quantic Dream renovated its motion capture studio. Now it's got like 64 cameras, and some sound-proof curtains and stuff, so that's ... you know, a good number of cameras. So ... We were going to make a Heavy Rain joke in which we suggest it "renovate" its voice capture studio by burning it to the ground. ... You know, because the acting was so bad? But it turns out that this new studio can do voice capture too, so that's not really that funny anymore. So, yeah.
