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[dragonbane]

Edit: Saw the part about the negotiation scene being the first scene of the game. That was sort of expected because they showed all of the possibilities, but that's huge because that means

Spoiler

Connor can die at the beginning of the game

. As much as Heavy Rain made a big deal about everyone being able to die early, that was only the case for 2 of the characters and neither could die until later in the game.

Yea this is very interesting. I can see several scenarios how they might realize it:

-They stopped caring if some players will have a very short game if everyone dies, so it can actually just happen that way
-Maybe this Connor dies, but Cyberlife builds a new one. However this will reset all development you experienced with the old one and this changes consequent scenes drastically, but keeps him in the game for a bit longer
-Maybe they limited the heavy branching to just 1-2 of the playable protagonists, which allows them to include crazy branching for them without exploding the budget

Either way this is good stuff

Was Beyond suppose to be about choices? Was it promoted that way?

It wasn't. People just sort of expected it, because it was the sequel to Heavy Rain. When pressed Cage just mentioned there would be choices that can affect the ending and there are a few even if it's not every involved and mostly focuses on the side characters. Beyond was an experiment with a linear narrative with more in-scene branching than actual plot branching, but from the results it didn't work out as well as Heavy Rain, so they are going back to it now it looks like. Beyond was also sort of rushed to still come out on PS3, so there wasn't a lot of pre-production time, which is obviously required if you want to have a branching narrative.

So with these types of games is it purely dialogue options? I never played Heavy Rain? There is no combat or exploration?

The game is all about exploration actually. It's usually one of the key pillars of their games. It's exploration, choices and often action scenes delivered through branching QTEs or similar mechanics. No traditional combat although they did third person driving before and some chase/escape scenes using traditional controls. First and foremost is also that every scene of the game is unique. They usually have a huge list of different locations in their games with different stuff to do in them. They mix it up a lot with simulating different day-to-day activities and scenes of everyday life as well. For example Heavy Rain had a waking up in the morning scene, a mall scene, trying to care of your son, playing golf, trying to cope with insomnia and nightmares, fight scene in a brothel, crime scene investigation, questioning a shrink, preventing someone from committing suicide in their house, police station, a graveyard etc.

 

[HStallion]

Now correct me if I'm totally off but wasn't there some rumblings about a multiplayer component of some kind for Quantic Dream's next game? I thought they were hiring for positions like that... or maybe I'm just misremembering. Though no clue how you would do mp in a game like this anyways.

 

[zsynqx]

I hope Quantic Dream played Until Dawn. It is this style of game done right.

FWIW I thought the E3 trailer was pretty great and I am definitely interested to learn more about the game.

 

[HStallion]

I hope Quantic Dream played Until Dawn. It is this style of game done right.

FWIW I thought the E3 trailer was pretty great and I am definitely interested to learn more about the game.

Until Detroit: Become Dawn

 

[Spring Drive]

I hope Quantic Dream played Until Dawn. It is this style of game done right.

FWIW I thought the E3 trailer was pretty great and I am definitely interested to learn more about the game.

Rami Malek should play every role

 

[usp84]

Impressive game i hope its more like Heavy Rain

 

[Zukkoyaki]

Everything about this screams Heavy Rain which is a very, very good thing.

 

[BlazingDarkness]

The 'our story' thing is clearly a motif of sorts that implies both the connection between the characters (the androids) and how all of the disparate choices and endings can weave together to create one story. It also refers to the player, as they are dictating the story as it unfolds, kinda like a choose your own adventure novel.
I don't really agree that it's cheesy - you hear that kind of line so often in games and movies, and it doesn't mean anything, but here it does. The trailer was actually great at being explicit as to what the game is, it very clearly shows the design of the game without having developer interviews cutting into the action to explain what was happening.

 

[mreddie]

Do we know when its coming? 2017?

 

[Slaythe]

I like that Quantic realized Until Dawn and Telltale were basically ripping them off and got better reception because they cut down the choices in Beyond.

Detroit feels like the answer to all those new interactive stories.

I'm really excited, they pretty much modernized the genre, can't wait to see how they can push it forward !

 

[VibratingDonkey]

I'd imagine scenes that spread out as much as this one with its six endings, won't be too common (Cage said this one was at the very beginning of the game), cause that seems like it'd rapidly get out of control.

I don't know if it's possible to make a game that accommodates for every decision having some distinct impact on the story, but I'll be content as long as the illusion holds up. They say they're striving to make this the bendiest story they've done, so that's good.

I also appreciate that Detroit is going back to multiple characters. Beyond still tried to do the jumping around, to different times instead of different characters, but it just felt like a disjointed mess. And there's just more fun stuff you can do with stories of multiple playable characters overlapping. Also you can have bad stuff happen to them without the story just ending. The tension from the knowledge that things could go bad, works pretty well in games like these.

 

[BlazingDarkness]

For me, Beyond has some really stand out scenes, but overall I felt like it was very unfocused, I said it before, it felt like a first or second draft rather than a final product. When I'm writing fiction, I first have very specific visuals and scenes in my mind which I put down, and then fit in the rest of the plot to work around those particular scenes to make an overall plot. Beyond had those memorable scenes, but the rest of the plot didn't hold up. I also didn't think the jumping around with the timeline was done to any real effect, so I question why they did that, for me it just made the whole thing even more incoherent.

Heavy Rain was a much more solid product overall, with my main gripes being minor things such as iffy voice acting and writing occasionally (but nowhere near the extent to which GAF likes to rip on Cage for), so to see that Detroit is returning to the design philosophy of Heavy Rain, but even more 'bendy', is promising.

 

[wapplew]

So we will only play droid in the game? I wonder what's their angle here.
Because we the player are making all the decision, but driod suppose to be making decision base on calculated probability right?
They want show droid have developed conscious (the player)?

I hope they can add a playable human character just to bring different perspective.

 

[HStallion]

So we will only play droid in the game? I wonder what's their angle here.
Because we the player are making all the decision, but driod suppose to be making decision base on calculated probability right?
They want show droid have developed conscious (the player)?

I hope they can add a playable human character just to bring different perspective.

There are 3 characters you play as, two out of three are androids and we don't know who the third character is.

 

[Spring Drive]

Do we know when its coming? 2017?

David Cage said 'not this year' but he wouldn't be more precise

I'd imagine scenes that spread out as much as this one with its six endings, won't be too common (Cage said this one was at the very beginning of the game), cause that seems like it'd rapidly get out of control.

I don't know if it's possible to make a game that accommodates for every decision having some distinct impact on the story, but I'll be content as long as the illusion holds up. They say they're striving to make this the bendiest story they've done, so that's good.

Alpha Protocol is a great answer to that question. Severely underrated game.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and its psychological profiling system is another landmark in choice/consequence in video games. The game doesn't even offer binary (e.g. kill/save) button prompts. Sometimes, just going through one door instead of the other, or merely looking at certain objects trigger a consequence. There's also actual psychological test scenes (just like Until Dawn) for even more player influence on the environment/story.

For this reason it's my favorite Silent Hill (and also because it has no combat but that's beside the point)

 

[dragonbane]

Now correct me if I'm totally off but wasn't there some rumblings about a multiplayer component of some kind for Quantic Dream's next game? I thought they were hiring for positions like that... or maybe I'm just misremembering. Though no clue how you would do mp in a game like this anyways.

Indeed, but doesn't look like Detroit will have it. It would be quite complex for sure and I can only imagine a few ways it could be done. I'm sure they are toying with it and it might come into play for one of their future games, especially since Journey's partner component deeply impressed Cage. But looks like Detroit will be SP only still.

I hope Quantic Dream played Until Dawn. It is this style of game done right.

FWIW I thought the E3 trailer was pretty great and I am definitely interested to learn more about the game.

The story/dialog/acting was better by not taking itself too serious and I loved UD for that. Gameplay wise while polished and featuring a good illusion, I don't think it's actually better than Heavy Rain. That game branched more drastically at the end with fewer main characters than UD.

The trailer was actually great at being explicit as to what the game is, it very clearly shows the design of the game without having developer interviews cutting into the action to explain what was happening.

After watching it many times I think it's the best trailer I have seen for a choice based game. Very well edited and produced and it explains the concept perfectly while also generating hype.

 

[zsynqx]

The story/dialog/acting was better by not taking itself too serious and I loved UD for that. Gameplay wise while polished and featuring a good illusion, I don't think it's actually better than Heavy Rain. That game branched more drastically at the end with fewer main characters than UD.

It's been a while since I have played Heavy Rain, but is basically impossible to construct a coherent narrative where every choice effects the story in a meaningful way. By allowing you to play as so many characters in UD and with the perceived threat of irreversible death around every corner, they struck an excellent balance of meaningful choices and illusion where it became difficult to tell the difference between the two.

I know Heavy Rain had multiple playable characters as well, but Until Dawn did a much better job at hiding the fact that many of your decisions are inconsequential. (imo)

Detroit has potential in this regard and I am happy that Cage has co-writers this time

After watching it many times I think it's the best trailer I have seen for a choice based game. Very well edited and produced and it explains the concept perfectly while also generating hype.

I agree with this. Very well done trailer.

 

[Acquiescence]

I guess it's up to the player whether Connor continues being a soulless automaton until the end or developers his own human-like traits during the course of the game. That whole premise genuinely excites me. Very Blade Runner-esque in its subject matter, but the city itself doesn't look quite as impressive as Ridley Scott's depiction of L.A. in 2019.

All that coin flipping at the start of the trailer seems to suggest that he's got his own unique foibles bubbling to the surface already. Wonderful animation during that part by the way.

 

[Spring Drive]

I guess it's up to the player whether Connor continues being a soulless automaton until the end or developers his own human-like traits during the course of the game. That whole premise genuinely excites me. Very Blade Runner-esque in its subject matter, but the city itself doesn't look quite as impressive as Ridley Scott's depiction of L.A. in 2019.

Hey, it's only Detroit after all

 

[Falchion]

Sounds cool, especially with the potentially different character arcs.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

Detroit talk with David Cage right now: https://www.twitch.tv/playstation

 

[Elitist1945]

The new character introduced today, Connor, is a “deviant hunter,” that hunts those androids that have been deviating from their protocols.

So a blade runner. Nice.

 

[Vidal]

Will Shawn be playable?

 

[Riposte]

I generally don't like these games, but an interesting setting (Blade Runner/GitS) and a seeming evolution over the previous games does make it more promising.

 

[Prosopon]

The concept of androids suddenly developing feelings and being hunted down as deviant is not a new one, but I'm hoping that they do interesting things with the story, without using the same old tropes associated with this type of story.

So a blade runner. Nice.

 

[Fox_Mulder]

I'm so IN

 

[dragonbane]

I guess it's up to the player whether Connor continues being a soulless automaton until the end or developers his own human-like traits during the course of the game. That whole premise genuinely excites me. Very Blade Runner-esque in its subject matter, but the city itself doesn't look quite as impressive as Ridley Scott's depiction of L.A. in 2019.

All that coin flipping at the start of the trailer seems to suggest that he's got his own unique foibles bubbling to the surface already. Wonderful animation during that part by the way.

Well, as much as I adore Blade Runner, Ridley Scott sure was overestimating us This is probably a quite realistic take if that whole sentient stuff would actually occur in Detroit. Also I fully agree with you. I think Connor already comes in with some baggage but you can decide yourself if it breaks out or not. Also similar to Norman who had the most death scenes in HR and was the hardest to keep alive seems to be somewhat the case for Connor too. But I like a challenge and I was proud that my Nahman survived and quit the FBI at the end. At least from this demo 3/6 endings have him straight up die and the one where you use a gun to kill Daniel will probably end up badly too since the warning explicitly mentions that Androids are not allowed to carry guns, so this will probably be a huge red flag and come back to bite you later. The only real ending that seems like would gain Connor sympathy and have him survive is the one where you talk Daniel down, which is likely the hardest to achieve. Pretty cool

Do we know when its coming? 2017?

Presumably yes. Seems like it will be very ambitious, so who knows. I wouldn't mind if they take their time to make sure it's going to deliver.

It's been a while since I have played Heavy Rain, but is basically impossible to construct a coherent narrative where every choice effects the story in a meaningful way. By allowing you to play as so many characters in UD and with the perceived threat of irreversible death around every corner, they struck an excellent balance of meaningful choices and illusion where it became difficult to tell the difference between the two.

I know Heavy Rain had multiple playable characters as well, but Until Dawn did a much better job at hiding the fact that many of your decisions are inconsequential. (imo)

I actually thought they did both a good job at hiding the system behind it for the first playthrough. Wouldn't really say any game was superior there except UD had the butterfly menu hammering it home one more time. I just thought HR was more consequential at the end. If you kill off Madison at the first opportunity it does cut out 3 entire scenes with her and like 1 hour of gameplay. There is nothing really like that in UD since 2 of the characters wear so much plot armour they always make it to the end no matter what and the rest of the cast is just coming along.
Or not, but it doesnt really make a difference besides some minor dialog changes while in HR entire scenes with unique locations are cut. UD only really has that for

Spoiler

Matt and Jess

, but its a very short scene and doesnt really fit into the rest of the story. HR offers more there both for Madison and Jayden. Plus all playable characters in HR can technically die or end up in jail before the penultimate scene of the game.

UD has the thing where if you decide to kill

Spoiler

Ashley she dooms Chris to death later on

which is very cool. But HR has that in an even bigger scale where killing off both Madison and Jayden early on will doom Ethan to death no matter what you do and the game is still running for a few hours at that point. Then we have the wildly different and unique endings for each character ranging from positive over depression to death while UD kinda lumps everything together. So personally I just thought Heavy Rain was more consequential when it came to the big picture, while UD's branching was more contained in the scene itself, but the overall plot direction is set until the very end.

 

[ichtyander]

I wonder if they're maybe trying to isolate the different protagonists into much more condensed and separate stories (all revolving around androids becoming sentient), like an omnibus/anthology film, but the outcomes all add in to the greater picture of a collective AI (all the androids) learning from these experiences, so that in the end, the player creates a type of "person", or influences a choice this AI has to make (either on a smaller scale, or a much larger one, depending on the overall story).

The isolated stories would allow for more branching paths that are important and influential to that specific story while not making everything too complicated in the global scheme of things. Little variations would influence the other characters in mostly non-consequential ways, and large variations (like a character dying) would create one big split into two larger arcs, which wouldn't be as complicated as having dozens upon dozens of script variations on every single detail.

I mean it's kinda simple, but I'm not sure if there's a lot more QD can do with full voice acting and mocap on several thousand pages long scripts (Beyond was over 2000 pages long). This way they'd make several smaller stories without the need to create entire new scenes if a character died or something, and still keep it all together around a single theme.

Maybe the whole premise will be that your story influences a slowly waking collective android mind to learn about what it means to be human (or shows us, the players, the humans, so that we become more compassionate towards these machines), so Connor tackles the themes of life and death, Kara learns about love and pain, and maybe other characters deal with other themes, so that in the end the player choices create a version of a new human being that's wise about all of those themes, or is perhaps oblivious to love, or even bitter, because Kara ends up heartbroken or dead.

Anyway, it was a nice trailer, some pretty neat facial mocap (although still pretty stiff in a lot of ways), and some pumping, intense soundtrack.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

GameSpot live Interview : http://www.gamespot.com/e3/live/

 

[DangerMouse]

Personally I loved Heavy Rain, but just appreciated Beyond...
And Detroit looks like an evolution of the Heavy Rain concept.

So I'm IN for the hype train!

Yeah. I really like how they are pushing the setting/atmosphere and way that things can play out with multiple characters again.

Plus I love scifi and androids and Blade Runner/GITS-inspired stuff.