Quantic Dream is back with a new story. What happens when robots become self-aware? Although this theme has been discussed many times, Detroit: Become Human tries to provide a new answer from three perspectives.
Detroit: Become Human
Developer:Quantic Dream / Sony
Price:
€59,99
Genre:
Adventure
Platform:
Playstation 4
Website:
playstation.com 7 Score 70
- Pros
- Intense scenes
- Realistic characters
- Magnificent
- Negatives
- writing work
- pace
- Control
- Story
In the game you control three different characters. There's Kara, an android who transcends her programming because she wants to protect a girl from her abusive father. Markus, who becomes human when his loving father figure is wronged. And Connor, a police android whose job it is to track down "deviants." Those are androids that behave outside of their original programming.
Compared to Quantic Dreams previous game, Heavy Rain, Detroit: Become Human has a stronger focus. Both in story and gameplay. In terms of gameplay, Heavy Rain stood out because you did things you normally never do in games, like brushing your teeth and shaving. Those moments are rare in Detroit. The game is more about experiencing the story and the exciting scenes in which you have to react quickly via quick time events.
Make choices
The story has hardly any mystery this time around, as it is purely about robots becoming aware and then seeking justice. Heavy Rain received a lot of criticism, because the mysterious plot was wrong. If you also miss parts of the story because of your choices, it doesn't get any better. Detroit's plot remains relatively simple. Because of the choices you make, you mainly see different versions of scenes and sometimes new pieces that deepen the story and the characters.
It's great that you can dive back in a chapter later to make different choices. Every time you finish a chapter you get atree in view with the branch you followed through your choices. You can freely go back to checkpoints to see those other branches. The best thing to do is play through the story in one go. If you go back later, you can choose to save the new progression or just view the different results. This way you can really see everything about the game without it having to affect your version of the story.
Overarching story
The makers want to tell a good story. From the moment robots start to become self-aware, to the moment they ask the world for equal rights and its aftermath. The authors make many non-subtle comparisons with slavery and segregation from the past. From having androids in the back of the bus, to peaceful protest marches, songs and the option to use "we have a dream". We weren't surprised to see an "android lives matter" in between, but luckily Quantic Dream has held back.
This story is nothing more than we haven't seen in popular culture before. For a game that's all about experiencing the story, that lack of originality is painful. Detroit: Become Human is best when this overarching story is unleashed and it's about the characters in specific horror situations. From the cemetery where broken robots are piled up and you literally have to climb out of this hell, to the scary mansion full of monsters and the ruins where a single unpredictable android threatens you with a knife.
Depends on your choices
Unfortunately, once Quantic Dream sends the game back towards the overarching story, it collapses. It also doesn't help that the scenes and locations sometimes follow each other a bit weird. The makers clearly want to tell those specific horror stories, but sometimes forget to make a nice continuous whole. If you also miss parts of the story due to certain choices, it really feels like a bite is missing. As a result, it can happen that a character knows something that they should not have known, or you as a player miss essential information for making a life-deciding choice. You can also see the plot twists that should be shocking coming from miles away. So something goes wrong with the writing.
The storytelling isn't helped by the controls either. It is a clumsy affair, especially in cramped environments. Also during the quick time events it is sometimes difficult to determine whether you have to move the stick or the entire controller. The motion controls add little and therefore mainly cause confusion. Where the game shines in any case, are the production values. Detroit is a beautiful game, with realistic and well-acted characters that feel real.
Although beautiful and often compelling, Detroit: Become Human falls largely into the same pitfalls that Heavy Rain also suffered from. This time, however, the gameplay isn't as special and tells a story that we've seen all too often elsewhere.
Detroit: Become Human will be available on May 25 for PlayStation 4.
