Thanks to the games of Quantic Dream, cinema meets video games, creating works that differ from any experience ever tried.
How much can our choices affect the events of a story? This is one of the main questions posed by the Quantic Dream games. The French company, founded by the illustrious David Cage in 1997 in Paris, he has always tried from the beginning to create video games that offer experiences never seen before, with a strong focus on the atmosphere and texture with a mature tone. With the first works made including: Omikron: The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit, Cage was still looking for his authorial style, starting with the adventure genre for Omikron, then moving on to the graphic adventure for Fahrenheit. The two titles had met with some success, in part they had the elements desired by Cage and the Quantic Dream guys, that is a strong focus on the plot, multiple choice dialogues, impact atmosphere, but still something was missing.
What makes a work of fiction memorable? What prompts a person to remember and relive previous experiences? The emotions. We cannot deny that often, the works that remain most impressed on us are those that make us move, that manage to tear a tear from us, that make us reflect or that we will remember for that character we are so fond of. Such experiences had already been invented a long time ago thanks to LucasFilm Games with graphic adventures in the novata years, like not being able to mention works of the caliber of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion e Grim Fandango.
Cage decided to extrapolate the essence of this genre, combining cinema with video games, betting everything on narrative drama, a genre based entirely on storytelling, emotions and innovation where the cinematic experience is king. There are no puzzles or elaborate gameplay, only the story events that we are going to experience guide the player smoothly. Finding the perfect balance between video game and cinematic work in their fusion is the key to success according to Quantic Dream. The fate of the characters will depend on our choices, we are the ones who weave the intertwined web of events.
A strong rain that hits the soul
The first work that staked everything on narrative drama and brought out Quantic Dream was Heavy Rain, a realistic psychological thriller of 2010 where we will be emotionally overwhelmed by the stories of the protagonists. Ethan Mars, father of two sons Jason and Shaun, lives a quiet and peaceful life with his wife Grace, introducing himself as the classic happy model family. Even when you think that everything is perfect, something catastrophic can happen, completely reversing the situation.
The death of a loved one is a difficult emotion to manage and Heavy Rain perfectly manages to convey to you all the sensations felt of a father destroyed by the loss of his son. For example, the simple daily actions, carried out through Quick time events, are able to be engaging with a strong scenic impact on the player, thanks to the directorial care of the scenes.
The atmosphere in Heavy Rain is heavy, melancholic, as if a heavy perennial rain hit the characters and the hearts of gamers. Going forward with the events he will sink more and more into the darkness, taking on the role of the characters, feeling all their emotions and keeping us glued to the screen to understand who the origami killer is.
Our protagonist will have to face deadly tests where he will risk his life and we will not be able to help but face them with a pounding heart, with the fear of losing him forever. Every choice in the game has a consequence, with a series of multiple choice dialogues that will change the fate of each character, having the feeling of having the fate of their lives in hand.
Heavy Rain manages to be Cage’s starting point towards effective narrative drama, even if it is limited to a single main plot strand, not variable, that is to discover the identity of the origami Killer. We will hear the consequence of our choices mainly for the characters Ethan, Madison, Shelby and Jayden, if they will live or perish what awaits them and what their future will be. This aspect is not at all negative, it still manages to be an experience that remains impressed by many players, looking like a detective film based on emotions, which talks about the complicated relationship with a child, what it means to love someone and the fear of loss and death.
Quantic Dream has managed to create a narrative drama that manages to make players feel a lot of sensations, even if it turns out too biased towards the cinematic experience that the video game. We will see that with future works our choices will not only affect the events of the characters, but also the main plot.
From thriller to paranormal – Quantic Dream games
With the second work of Quantic Dream released in 2013, Beyond: Due anime, Cage improved the base launched from previous games, increasing the attention to the cinematic aspect but also experimenting with a different narrative, less classical. In fact, the story is not linear, it is not narrated in chronological order but we will live the events in random order, having to reconstruct in mind what we see. Sometimes you will be able to see the consequences of something before seeing the causes and this aspect is strongly inspired by Memento, film made by Christopher Nolan where only at the conclusion of the work we will be able to build the puzzle thanks to all the pieces.
Beyond: Two Souls tells the story of Jodie Holmes, a little girl endowed with psychic powers thanks to the connection of a supernatural entity named Aden, which allows her to move objects, possess other people, heal them or even kill them. His whole life, from childhood to adulthood, are told in chronological order, going from past to present continuously, creating a strong interest in the player to reconstruct the picture of the girl’s life.
As in Heavy Rain, the tones of the story are quite dramatic, with our protagonist struggling to overcome a difficult past as a laboratory guinea pig, often unable to control her powers. The girl will perform actions against her will that lead her into a perennial state of repentance, discomfort and self-struggle, feeling different and difficult to integrate into society. These emotions will be conveyed to the players thanks to the excellent care of the direction as in Heavy Rain, further improved thanks to a more refined motion capture and with the use of famous actors such as Elliot Page and Williem Dafoe, making it even more cinematic.
The events of Beyond: Two Souls will also be affected by our choices, but still it is limited only to the fate of the characters, without being able to alter the course of the main plot. Thanks to the non-chronological narrative and the focus on the girl’s entire life, the events are very varied both for the settings but also for the situations in which she finds herself, passing from action to drama.
All this, however, is not enough to have the sensation of total control of the story, resulting in any case a work of successful cinematic side that excites the player, while the gaming side has not yet reached what Cage is aiming for. With the next work we will see that after many years of long waiting and development, Cage has managed to realize his dream of creating a work where we will have full, or almost full control of the story.
Androids feel emotions too – Quantic Dream Games
Detroit Become Human is the last work created by the guys of Quantic Dream, released in 2019, resulting in the highest point reached by the team. The game was billed as the team’s most ambitious work, with well beyond “1000 different combinations”In which events can unfold and with the possibility of losing all playable characters before the end of the story. Set in a futuristic Detroit of 2038, androids are first launched on the market to do any type of job.
From the start they turn out to be excellent workers, as they are programmed to carry out any order, making them more efficient than humans. This phenomenon has greatly raised the unemployment rate, causing the discontent of the American population and a contempt for androids. While not having to express emotions being machines, we will soon discover that this is not the case, the cases of androids experiencing fear, anger and love, classified as faulty machines, or the “deviants”.
We will follow the events of three androids in particular: Markus, Connor e Kara, each with a well-established role and with multiple endings for each. Each story is designed to show Detroit and the relationship between androids and humans from different perspectives, dealing with interesting social issues but already seen many times in science fiction stories. We will have the story that speaks most of the gap between man and machine, with several moments of action and high tension, then moving on to more intimate and exciting stories, which go to awaken the feelings in androids, making them more human than they seem.
Everything works because the three stories are perfectly intertwined in a single vein, without any of them being subdued, developing hand in hand towards a conclusion determined by our choices, giving a strong feeling of being in control of all events.
One of the big additions introduced in Detroit Become Human over previous titles is the presence of one map for each scene of the game showing all possible choices of that scenario, with the various crossroads and their outcomes. This addition makes ours much more impactful choices, having the feeling that the fate of the whole story is really changing.
Cage with Detroit Become Human is managed to improve the balance between cinema and video game, managing to perfect the playful side, with more elaborate and varied quick time events and with a huge amount of multiple choices that leads us to many variations of events. On the visual side, the apex of his works has been reached, with exceptional graphic and artistic detail. We have androids that look like real actors, as if they were acting in a movie.
Con Detroit Become Human the Quantic Dream philosophy is now clear, wanting to balance the emotion of cinema with videogame entertainment, two worlds as different as they are similar, which with the right points of conjunction are able to create something incredible. Two mediums very powerful in transmitting emotions if used in the right way, how difficult it is to find the perfect union, because even if they are very close to Detroit Become Human, they still do not represent (perhaps) the true point of arrival of Cage. For this reason, the spotlight is all on the new project: Star Wars Eclipse.
The point of arrival, Eclipse, what to expect?
One of the biggest criticisms made of Detroit Become Human, or rather most of the Quantic Dream games, is that it doesn’t …