Despite being a huge form of entertainment in line with films and television, when it comes to actors there’s little bleed over between the video games medium and Hollywood. That is changing a little perhaps, most notably with the likes of Keanu Reeves being a major character in Cyberpunk 2077 and Death Stranding being filled with various big name talent.

Because of that, it can often be seen in a cynical light whenever a major publisher reaches out to Hollywood level talent for a game, a (not-so) cheap ploy to garner attention. And, to be honest, it can work, too. When it was revealed that Reeves would be in Cyberpunk there were as many, if not more, articles written about that than anything else relating to the game. But David Cage sees it differently, saying going after that kind of talent has warrants to a game’s value beyond marketing.

In speaking with OnlySP, the Head of Quantic Dream actually said he felt getting Hollywood talent can be a negative in a way precisely because people look at it in that cynical way. He also says those who are seasoned actors can help bring a new level of emotion to a role that maybe someone who hasn’t had that experience can’t.

“We never considered actors with big names as an asset in themselves for our games. Actually, we sometimes felt it was even the opposite: having famous actors could be a handicap for a title because some press and gamers will think that they are just marketing assets.

We will certainly continue to work with Hollywood talents in the future because they significantly help us to create emotional experiences and believable characters.”

The studio dabbled a bit in that with Beyond: Two Souls when Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe provided likeness, motion capture and voices to that game. As things like motion capturing and scanning becoming more common and advanced there probably is something to be said for the value of being able to act out a scene that wasn’t to be had years ago in video games.

For the last decade Quantic Dreams has worked exclusively with Sony to release titles for their PlayStation hardware. The partnership started with Heavy Rain, then Beyond: Two Souls and accumulated with their most successful title, Detroit: Become Human. Now the company is breaking out a bit, saying at the beginning of this year they wanted to go multiplatform, and now all three of the before mentioned games are coming to PC later this year. Seems their ambitions go beyond that, however, as the studio now wants to became a full blown third party publisher.

As reported by GamesBeat, the company has employed Sebastien Motte, a former executive of Unity and Microsoft, to help helm their budding publishing division. With a new minority investment from Chinese company NetEase, they hope to sustain a new model and publish 1-2 titles a year.

“Quantic Dream has been an independent, triple-A developer for the past 22 years,” Motte said. “With the NetEase investment, we are fully independent again. We are able to self-fund future development on multiple projects. And more importantly, with better digital distribution channels, there is an opportunity to become more independent and self publish.”

Making a transition from developer to publisher is a rocky one and something that many companies have tripped up in attempting. It’ll be interesting to see how Quantic Dream manages it.

In the last couple of years, Sony’s first parties have been delivering one game after another that pushes the PlayStation 4’s hardware to its absolute limits. The latest game to come out of the Sony pipeline, Quantic Dreams’ Detroit: Become Human is an absolute stunner as far as its visuals are concerned.

From an art style perspective, Detroit is a neo-noir thriller set in the near future, with a look that may not be as exaggerated as what you see in something like Blade Runner, being a little more grounded stylistically, it certainly is reminiscent of it. And that leads to a visual style that is inherently beautiful. The general look and feel of the near-future version of the city of Detroit is at the same time immediately arresting and entirely believable. Beyond the art style, though, there’s a lot to speak of from a technical standpoint as well.

Detroit does indeed feature PS4 Pro enhancements that leverage the system’s added capabilities to an extent, and while the differences on paper imply a significant leap, in effect, the gap between the two versions isn’t all that noticeable. On the base PS4, Detroit is rendered at a resolution of 1080p, and runs at a frame rate of 30 frames-per-second. On the PS4 Pro, the game makes use of checkerboard rendering to output at a resolution of 2160p, while running at the same frame rate as the base version- though it must be said, the frame rate on the Pro is a lot more consistent, with the game dropping below 30 frames occasionally on the base PS4, which we also noted in our review.

While the PS4 Pro version of Detroit does enjoy a boosted resolution, beyond that there really aren’t a great many differences between the two versions of the game, and you can’t really go wrong with either one of them. Because even on a base PS4, Detroit is stunning to behold. Perhaps one of the most impressive things about its visuals has to be its facial models and animations. Facial models have always been one of Quantic Dreams’ strong suites, but they’ve taken it a step above in Detroit: Become Human. The detail here is absolutely incredible, from the pores of their skin and the lines on their faces to even their hair and the way it moves.

Beyond facial models and animations, one of the most impressive aspects of Detroit’s visuals is its lighting. The game makes use of both, global illumination and dynamic lighting, to achieve effects with lighting that look incredibly realistic and unbelievably crisp. Thanks to physically-based rendering, lighting bounces off of surfaces in a believable manner, looking shinier and sharper.

There’s very little in Detroit that you can point to while speaking of imperfections in visuals or from a technical perspective. From its lighting and shadows to its textures and facial animations, the game is crammed full of incredible detail, and looks just beautiful. As far as differences between the PS4 Pro and base PS4 versions go, as we’ve already discussed, the gap is marginal, with the only real difference being in the higher resolution and the fact that frame rate on a Pro is slightly steadier. On either console, Detroit is a marvellous technical achievement, and without a doubt stands tall as one of the best looking games of the current console generation.

2018 is jam-packed with excellent first party releases for the PS4, and one of the most highly anticipated amongst those has to be Detroit: Become Human, Quantic Dreams’ next title. At last night’s PlayStation Experience event, Quantic Dream’s Guillaume de Fondaumière revealed a new gameplay trailer for the game.

Fondaumière was playing the game while the footage was being shown, during which he showcased several things, such as the choice-based mechanics and the overall interactivity of the game. The footage is really good, and it’s especially worth checking out if you’re excited about the game. You can check it out below.

Fondaumière also confirmed that development on Detroit is almost done, while also revealing some other details on the game. He stated that Detroit has a script of over two thousand pages, that it’s story is “the most branching narrative that we’ve ever created”, and that it’s one that will “touch players on an emotional level.” He called Detroit Quantic Dreams’ most ambitious project ever, claiming that it will take players several playthroughs to fully experience everything the game has to offer.

Detroit: Become Human is supposed to launch in 2018 for the PS4, though it’s without a specific release date yet. Given that it’s been confirmed that the game’s development is almost complete, though, we can probably expect it to launch some time in the first two quarters of the year. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for continued coverage on the game.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

In late 2013, Quantic Dream founder and CEO David Cage announced he was in pre-production on a PS4 exclusive, which would build upon what he had done in the past with Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, “but in a very, very different way.” Cage announced the game he had teased back in 2013 was a title about androids, dubbed Detroit: Become Human at the Sony press briefing during the Paris Game Week event on October 27, 2015. It was also announced that the game is built using the “Kara” demo the company unveiled back in 2012. Quantic Dream first teased its work on PS4 with a tech demo of The Dark Sorcerer back at E3 2013 though at that point there wasn’t any kind of game in the mode of Detroit: Become Human to show off. Quantic Dream showed off the game with a reveal trailer. At the end of the trailer Quantic Dream shows that the entire video was made with in-engine footage.

Originally, the Kara demo was never supposed to be a full game, but Cage and the rest of the development team decided they wanted to see what would happen. The director said the final game took them in a direction they didn’t expect. Quantic Dream also announced that in order to make the surroundings as realistic as possible, they actually traveled to Detroit and checked out the lay of the land.

Story

There isn’t a great deal known about the story behind Detroit: Become Human other than what was shown off in the reveal trailer. The game takes place at some point in the future where Detroit has basically dug itself out from financial problems by becoming a city that produces service-bot androids that are very similar in appearance to humans. In fact, it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between the humans and the androids except for the small blue discs of light around the robots’ temples. It appears that while the androids have long been considered the same kind of accessory as cars used to be (hence the Detroit ties) something has happened that is starting to make humans angry at the androids.

One scene shows a human being so angry he actually grabs one of the robots and appears to scream in his face. The video opens showing a billboard showing that Detroit is now called “Android City” and a narrator who we later find out is the main character Kara is laying the groundwork for the story. She talks about the fact that she can actually remember how she first gained life and sentience. The video then shows that androids being packaged up like products and displayed in store windows. While the other androids appear to be going about their duties, Kara is walking through the streets of the city showing how the world looks to her from the eyes of someone who isn’t actually a human being.

As the narration continues, she begins to talk about how the story of Detroit: Become Human is the story of the androids that populate Detroit. As she is walking down the street, several of the robots that were previously standing obediently start to look after her and even appear to be getting ready to follow her. The voice over seems to be hinting that there might be some sort of a revolution coming, or that even erupts as the game starts, but nothing along those lines is actually pictured in the reveal trailer.

Gameplay

There isn’t much of anything known about the way the gameplay will work in Detroit: Become Human. The development team has said that the gameplay will be very similar to what we have seen in the company’s most recent games, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. That means the game will likely have a fairly basic system when it comes to moving around the environment of Detroit. There will be the ability to interact with different people and objects in the world. Since the trailer was made with footage, in engine, we can also assume this will be a third person perspective game where players will control Kara but will not actually be seeing things through her eyes.

Characters

The main character in the story is introduced in the reveal trailer as Kara, an android that appears to have been able to escape captivity and service. None of the other characters are named in the reveal trailer, though a few versions of other androids are featured prominently in the trailer. There is an African-American android that Kara spots a couple of times during her travels, as well as an Asian-American android she walks buy and appears to be considering joining her in her travels.

There is a Caucasian model of the androids that are shown off as being multiple copies and also appears to be the most common kind of android in this world. At one point there are several of the same model standing in what are “parking stalls.” It is not known whether or not any of these characters are going to play a part in the actual game, or whether they were simply used to help debut the game in this particular trailer. Any human enemies or antagonists are not specifically named or revealed in the trailer.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game

About the game:

From the makers of the award-winning smash hit Heavy Rain comes a unique, interactive psychological thriller. Featuring a brand-new game engine and a compelling, original story; BEYOND: Two Souls showcases a new generation of interactive drama gaming. Live the life of Jodie Holmes, a young woman who possesses supernatural powers through her psychic link to an invisible entity. Experience the most striking moments of Jodie’s life as your actions and decisions determine her fate. As she traverses the globe, Jodie will face incredible challenges against a backdrop of emotionally-charged events never before seen in a video game.

The game is being developed by Quantic Dreams and published by Sony. It is due in 2013 exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

Quantic Dreams CEO, Guillaume de Fondaumiere via GI Biz, mentioned that they lost between €5 – €10 million in royalties due to second hand sales of Heavy Rain.

He also mentioned that the game sold 2 million units till date, which is a very good sales number for a new IP like Heavy Rain. He was upset about the second hand sales and told how they found out that 1 million people played the game by buying it used.

“I would say that the impact that the recession had, that the most important impact especially on AAA games on console, was the rise of second hand gaming. 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.”

He also mentioned that this caused them a loss of €5 – €10 million.

“On my small level it’s a million people playing my game without giving me one cent. And my calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between €5 and €10 million worth of royalties because of second hand gaming.”

It is a bit funny that he is saying this because since Heavy Rain was a new IP and it sold extremely well, the extra one million is more like an advertisement for the game. At  least we think it is. He should be satisfied with the 2 million sales, because people were expecting it to sell 500,000 units at one time.

What do you guys think about this? Tell us in the comments section below.

While they will be looking to adopt a new approach to their games this time around, they will continue to concentrate more on story, presentation and character development.

“We currently work on two very different projects,” Cage said.

“After the success of Heavy Rain, we continue to explore how we can go further with interactive drama, working on emotion and interactive storytelling for a mature audience, but with a very different story and a different approach.”

He says the new projects are not just half hearted attempts as result to a burnout after Heavy Rain- no, the development team is all excited about these new games.

“Often, after a long and challenging project like Heavy Rain, it is difficult for the team to get excited again about a new idea,” he added.

“This is absolutely not the case at the moment at Quantic and all the team seems enthusiastic about the possibility of other projects” said Cage.

Heavy Rain fans will be pleased to hear that the studio is going to continue to take risks and “try to invent new ways of playing.”

Quantic Dreams have provided us with wonderful experiences, and we definitely look forward to the next two games. What do you think? Tell us in your comments!