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The folks at Quantic Dream are on the verge of unleashing their latest project on the gaming world. With Heavy Rain, the studio is on the verge of adding another item to its résumé, a résumé that displays a trend of titles that challenge what we actually think of as a "video game."
Next week, this game will grace stores shelves around the world. And just in case the slew of reviews that have hit the Web lately haven't convinced you that this game may be a little unique, we've got something that might push you over the edge.
David Cage, Co-Founder of Quantic Dream and Game Director for Heavy Rain, was kind enough to take a few moments out of his busy schedule to answer a few of our burning questions regarding his studio's latest product. He discusses exactly what Heavy Rain is and, more importantly, what it is not. David also touches on the mature content that you can encounter in the game, as well as the widely varied experiences the development team has encountered in its internal play tests.
Hit the jump for the full interview, and don't forget to check out the game's official site for all its Heavy Rain goodness.
This interview was a join effort between Addam Kearney and Larry Marcum.
Internally, how do you classify Heavy Rain? Do you view it as an adventure game? An investigative RPG? Or do you see it as more than a game?
DC: Heavy Rain is NOT an adventure game. Adventure games are based on well known mechanics: inventory, object management, 2D puzzles, exploration and picking the right line in dialogue. Heavy Rain has nothing similar. It is entirely based on emotional involvement, moral choices, actions and consequences. It is not based on the usual paradigms of video games either: no gun, no car, no platform to jump on, no boss, no levels, no game over. Games have used the same rules for twenty years and it seems very difficult to use them any better than some recent games. But emotion is still not there and most of them look quite cold and mechanical. Heavy Rain suggests that maybe the good old rules should be changed and the game offers new solutions, new answers, new ways to redefine what interacting means.
Since there are four persona, do you think players will find it hard to get attached to the main characters in the story?
DC: Certainly not. This is something I've explored since my first game Omikron where the player could get reincarnated in different characters. It is also something that has been widely demonstrated in TV series: when you watch Lost or Desperate Housewives, you follow different characters with the same interest. Jumping from one to another is a part of the narrative language and it is something pleasant as it offers a fast-paced narrative using different points of view. Heavy Rain does nothing different. Players' empathy is built for each of the four main characters, players may have their favorite ones, but they will play each of them with the same pleasure, I think. It brings a unique feel to the experience by allowing to control different characters having different personalities in different situations, instead of sticking for the same one for ten hours. It also allows us to play with the narrative threads, make the player be the only one to know everything, make the characters cross their paths or not, etc. After three games using several controllable characters, I can only see advantages to this narrative process.
There has been a lot of talk about the malleability of the story in Heavy Rain. We already know that characters can die at any point in the game, but how flexible is the story? What kinds of varied experiences have you seen in internal play sessions so far?
DC: We were actually surprised to see in play tests and reviews how players' experiences could vary from one game to another. We realized that two players having played the game and talking about their experiences told very different stories. The first third of the game is mainly used to establish the characters and the plot, but after that, many things can happen, consequences leading to other consequences, and making the story at the end very different. We also realized that when two players talked together, they usually had only one idea in mind: going back to the game and replaying it to see what they missed.
After spending time developing Indigo Prophecy, what have you learned about developing this type of title? How different is the development process this time around?
DC: This type of experiences requires a very different development process. First of all, it requires a very solid script with very little changes on the way. The production process is so heavy that discovering that a story path is missing or that some scenes should be modified could easily become a tragedy. Once delivered to the team, the script cannot significantly change, for the better or the worse.
The second difficulty is that, as the director, I must maintain the consistency of the initial vision in a development lasting three years with more than 200 people involved and in every single department. Having creative control over so many people through such a long period of time is definitely a huge challenge.
Last but not least, this type of games takes a lot of time to emerge from chaos. Until all elements are correctly implemented -- including dialogues, music, sound effects, cameras -- it is difficult to feel any emotion in a scene and thus to adjust the art direction. Everything comes together in the very last months of development, with all art direction having made pretty much blindly with my fingers crossed so far, and there is very little time to make the final adjustments. So all this requires a cold head, wide-open eyes and an experienced team.
The controls in Heavy Rain are, to put it plainly, a bit abnormal. Why was the decision made to use a control scheme like this?
DC: Video games have used the same control scheme for years. It is certainly not the only possible scheme, not even the best one, it is just the one everybody is used to. This system, like any other, has pros and cons. One of the issues, for example, regarding navigation is the fact that the camera is usually stuck in the back of the character and cannot offer any sense of directing when the character moves. On Heavy Rain, we use a system where the camera is free, by simply changing the fact that moving forward is done using R2 and the left analogue stick controls the head and shoulders of the character. In most games, interacting is done using the X button. In Heavy Rain, we decided to emulate the motion of the character with the right analogue stick so the player has the feeling of moving in real time the hand of his character. In most games, the interface is in 2D, in Heavy Rain, it is integrated in 3D in the environment so the player can see at the same time what he wants to interact with and how. In most games, action sequences are based on the same ten animations assigned to pre-established buttons. In Heavy Rain, each action is contextual, we never use the same animation twice, there is no generic move and we use the full controller to immerse the player through motion.
I don't think this is abnormal in any way. It offers an alternate way of interacting offering more possibilities in many aspects and probably better adapted to the type of experience that is Heavy Rain. In play tests, we saw that players were disoriented for ten minutes, but that once they were used to the new control scheme, they completely forgot about it and were just focusing on the experience.
The gut reaction from some people seems to be that Heavy Rain is one giant quick-time event. How do you feel about this stigma, and why did you make the decision to utilize an interactive tool like this?
DC: I think that the time where some not very well informed people saw Heavy Rain like a giant quick-time event is now gone. Reviews are published and I could not read one article mentioning this. The initial problem was that some people could not figure out how to play a story and the only solution they could see was to make it a big QTE. Now that journalists could play the full game and that the playable demo is out, gamers can see that there are ways of telling a story in an interactive way without QTE and that Heavy Rain is much more than that. All in all, QTE sequences represent about 10% of the full game. These sequences are not what people imagined -- Dragon's Lair-style control schemes -- but they are a completely different approach based on real time controls, using the full controller, having immediate consequences, offering spectacular visuals and putting the player at the heart of the action with the feeling of being in full control. I have seen players ending some scenes completely stressed and out of breath. Even the most pessimistic journalists seemed convinced after having played these scenes.
Again, this is a very small portion of the game, Heavy Rain offers full direct controls most of the time.
There was a heavy emphasis on motion capture in Indigo Prophecy, and Heavy Rain has boasted some of the most realistic-looking characters in the industry. What was the process like for developing the technology and assets for the graphical side of the game?
DC: Heavy Rain is entirely based on proprietary technologies. The 3D engine, the facial animation technique, the lighting system, the camera management were all designed and developed especially to create the experience that is Heavy Rain. We spent a lot of time on details, the way the skin reacts to light, the way the eyes move, how to create cameras with weight and lenses, etc.
Working on virtual actors was also something important. Every single actor in Heavy Rain is based on a real person, using his face, eyes, skin, body, voice and movements. We recreated virtual clones of real actors and worked to recreate their acting performance as well as possible in the game.
Many of the games that bear a "Mature" label don't really deal with truly mature content. Do you think the fact that Heavy Rain deals with these mature themes will hurt or help you in the eyes of the general public, which has often vilified games?
DC: Being "mature" means, in many games, showing intense violence and sex in a vulgar way. This is not what "mature" means in Heavy Rain. The game evokes mature themes in a mature way. Its main topic is "how far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?", the kind of topic that few games dared to evoke before. I believe that games are now mature enough to talk about more complex themes without having to be provocative for the sake of being provocative. Heavy Rain is mature in the good sense of the term, not because it offers sex and blood, but because it is a game for adults where sex and blood could be used but where they are not the subject and are never used in a gratuitous way. I am sure that players and critics will easily see the difference.
How has the technology in the PlayStation 3 aided the development of Heavy Rain?
DC: A title like Heavy Rain could have hardly been developed on any other platform. Because of the hardware of course, and it is easy to see that titles like Uncharted 2 or Heavy Rain are good examples of what the console can achieve. But also because Sony made possible for these creative concepts to exist on their platforms. Titles like Little Big Planet, Flower, The Last Guardian or Heavy Rain could only be created on the PlayStation 3, and I don't think this is a coincidence.
Will you consider the disc-based Heavy Rain package to be complete? Or can we expect some downloadable content after the game's release?
DC: The disc-based version of Heavy Rain is of course complete. The experience has all its endings and costumes, absolutely nothing is missing. We will consider proposing DLC, based on the commercial success of the game, to allow players to spend more time with their favorite characters and to learn more about them.
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