Everything You Need to Know About Detroit: Become Human

Early Beginnings and The Narrative

Detroit: Become Human was actually developed from one of Quantic Dream’s shorts entitled Kara, which came out in 2011. The quick film was only meant as a tech demo to showcase the power of the company’s new game engine, but the popularity and intrigue quickly grew, and David Cage started writing what would eventually become Detroit: Become Human.

In a similar style to Quantic Dream’s other games, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, Detroit: Become Human is primarily driven by narrative and has players making important decisions on behalf of the characters. The narrative for Beyond, though, is one of the biggest that Quantic Dream has tackled, with a script that is nearly 2,000 pages long and a narrative where every action has a future consequence.

The game takes place in a noir-style, futuristic Detroit where androids dominate the city. There are three playable characters- Kara, Connor, and Markus.

This post was originally written by Victoria Morrow.

Gameplay

For those who are already familiar with Quantic Dream’s other titles, you will have a good feel for how Detroit: Become Human will play. Players will navigate the characters through their environments and have the ability to interact with the majority of objects around them. When conversing with NPCs, the dialogue options branch into many directions, which can reveal information necessary to make more informed choices later down the road.

Players’ choices in Detroit: Become Human appear to have more freedom than those in past Quantic Dream games, with a myriad of different outcomes to each situation. In the gameplay trailer from E3, we saw Markus attempting to free a group of androids. In that situation, Markus had the option to approach it peacefully, violently, or just abandon it altogether.

In a similar vein, during PSX 2017 we saw Connor navigate a destroyed apartment collecting clues to better solve the crime. The amount of clues he found was dependent on the mission’s success when confronting the rogue android at the end. These three intertwined narratives of Kara, Connor, and Markus will have the player facing hard decisions and moral dilemmas to shape an uncertain future.

The Characters

Kara

Though there are three androids who share the lead role, much of the focus has been on Kara, seeing how she was the first one introduced. She’s an android, who is owned by a human named Todd Williams. In a trailer shown at E3 2017, we learned that Williams is the father of a young girl, Alice, with whom Kara seems to share a bond.  Because of Kara’s tendencies to disobey Williams, she’s labeled a “deviant” android.

Connor

Next we have Connor, a detective who hunts down deviant androids. We got a better look at Connor’s story during PlayStation Experience 2017, when a lengthy scene from the game shows him trying to solve a crime in order to save Alice’s life.

Markus

Markus was the last android to be introduced and is a revolutionary of sorts, who believes androids should have free will.

In an interview with writer David Cage, he says, “People will see it as, ‘Oh this is about androids and the revolution,’ and honestly I don’t think this is the story I wrote. I think it’s really a game about us. Humans…it’s about civil rights.”