David Cage: “You Try Not to Be Too Influenced by Feedback”, “You Just Do What You Believe In”

On a recent panel in Sydney for promoting Quantic Dream’s upcoming Beyond: Two Souls, director David Cage revealed that despite criticisms and other feedback for Heavy Rain, he tries to not let it influence his next venture.

“The thing is, if Heavy Rain had been a complete disaster, then probably I would have changed my mind. But actually you try not to be too influenced by the feedback because otherwise you become a marketing person. It’s like, I get my list of things that people wanted or didn’t want and I’m just going to tick the boxes and try to make them happy.

“This is not how I work and I don’t think any creative person can work that way – you just do what you believe in, or you go where your instinct leads you. And hope it won’t turn out completely wrong.”

This isn’t to say that he didn’t listen at all. In fact, Cage felt “inspired” by players who shared their experiences of playing Heavy Rain.

“Still today, three years after the game’s release, there are still people telling me about what happened to them in Heavy Rain, in a very personal way – as if was something that happened to them in their real life, which is brilliant, I think. This is great; I can feel this; I find this very inspiring. But at the same time, yeah, some people liked this, and some people liked that – okay, fair enough, now let me try something else. Let me try another direction, and see if I can do better this time.”

Beyond: Two Souls releases exclusively for PlayStation 3 on October 8th in North America and October 11th in Europe.