Games from the David Cage’s Studio Quantum Dream have always been good for those people who want to live the story as closely as it is possible in modern games, due to fast-paced decision-making mechanism, and a narrative story-like gameplay. Every decision in these games has its consequences that are irrevocable and sometimes end up in a situation where the player’s values and norms define his choices in the game.
Such immersive experience makes the game great as the idea behind this genre of gaming is solely the immersion of player that is achieved not by the gameplay mechanics but by the choices and consequence of those choices. We have seen games like Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two souls or Until Dawn that defined the way in which this genre was looked at previously. Detroit: Become Human is one such Quantum Dream’s game, with better gameplay, visuals and most importantly better and bigger story to follow, that’s what they are saying. Let’s see what we make of this game in its detailed Review.
“Detroit: Become human” features three playable characters, all of them are a part of the bigger story with their individual story embedded such that an event in one’s story might affect the story of the other playable characters.
The whole plot is based on the future where Humans and androids that are created by men to aid in the daily life tasks, the androids are the underprivileged parts of the society that mostly serves as the workers/helpers of humans.
The story revolves around how androids develop a conscience and try to make the world equal for both humans and them. The developers are trying to create awareness about the Civil Right movements but fall short as the story becomes a little “clumsy” around this aspect as it progresses towards the end. The story has its slight loopholes here and there, but the games as expected excels at this department making the experience worthwhile for the player.
The gameplay that is based on the third-person perspective is very straightforward; the left analog stick controls the movement of the character, the right analog stick is used to interact with the surroundings, R2 scans the environment while other controls, as well as the touchpad on the DualShock4 controller, are utilized through quick-time events and dialogue decisions.
The story depends upon the choices you make during the gameplay, some choices might end up with lethal consequences for the character, but the story continues that means there is no “game over respawn from the last checkpoint” unless all of the playable characters are dead.
It features three playable characters (androids), the story of them is spread over 22 chapters where the player switch from one character to another as the game progresses, it should be noted the choices made in the story of one character have consequences in the story of the other characters as well. The three playable characters include Kara, Connor, and Markus.
Kara, a housekeeper android owned by a drug addict Todd Williams and his daughter Alice, Kara‘s duty is to keep the house and look after Alice. Kara escapes with Alice as a result of an assault from the Drug Addict, leading to a series of events that will unfold as you play the game. Kara being a fragile android often finds itself in difficult situations, on the escape from its owner. It tries to reach Canada because there are no laws there that signify humans or Androids, unlike Detroit.
On the conquest, they meet another android Luther who aids them to reach Jericho from where they can get their passports. In their journey all three of them might end up reaching their destination or die on the way, all of it will depend upon the choices you make through the journey.
The main story revolves around Markus who is a caretaker of a benevolent old man, Markus defies all its programming as a result of an incident and start to develop a thinking process of its own, which causes the police to shoot Markus. It finds itself in a dump where it finds Jericho a wrecked ship and makes it a haven for the deviants and other androids.
These events lead it to make a movement that would work for the rights of androids; they usually create havoc to get the attention from the public (Humans), the movement also includes a social disobedience movement that would try to consolidate their stance.
The success of the efforts of Markus end up in the call of peace dialogues from the president; the failure would mark the death of it from the hands of police android Connor that happens to be the third playable character. It can succeed if the player chooses the right choices throughout the game.
The final playable character is Connor that works with detective Hank Anderson who is an alcoholic and hates androids. Conner must make do with him and his cynicism; these two must work together to resolve the mystery of recent murders, Conner helps Hank by gathering evidence from the crime site and by recreating crime scene with the help of the evidence.
Connor’s partner is rough around the edges, but the player can sway him to trust androids, failure to do so would end up with the suicide of Hank. It is not always true to select the right option to make him trust you because Hank knows better not to listen to the person who tells him what he wants to hear, keep this in mind while playing.
Other than this the game also allows the player to backtrack the story through the complete analysis at the end of the chapter or at any time if you look at the pause menu. You can go back and make some of your mistakes right, but this will have an overall detrimental effect on your experience.
Because the sole purpose of any games is that the joy or satisfaction that you get by beating the game. They put it out there for some people who like to complete (Fact: Most story modes that you play are less than 50% of the game) the game, but the reason still is the same the playing experience matters for the developers and the players.
Detroit: Become Human is the kind of a game, that is not going to attract people who don’t like this genre, but people who like it will have a good time playing. The game retails at $59.99 as every game out there at the time of launch. The price is not going to decide whether you should play this game or not, it’s the gameplay and story that matters, and it shines in these departments.