US Edition Format: PlayStation 3
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released: TBC 2009
While video games continue to evolve as a medium, both technologically and artistically, narrative structure is one area where it remains in its infancy. The stories spun have become more sophisticated, but the medium finding its own voice to tell them remains elusive.
With Heavy Rain, French developers Quantic Dream are looking to reach the next level of interactive storytelling. Described by director David Cage as “a dark thriller set on the east coast of the US” Heavy Rain revolves around four very different characters and how their destinies interlace. Actual plot details are being kept under wraps for now, but it is the way that Heavy Rain proposes to tell its story that is garnering so much attention. “Heavy Rain is about creating an emotional experience for the player,” says Cage. “And not just excitement and adrenalin like most games do, but something more subtle. That was the big challenge. It’s a lot easier to give a player adrenalin than to make them feel sadness or empathy.”
This idea of games creating an ‘emotional experience’ is nothing new, and such a comment can often seem ripped straight out the big book of developer hyperbole. Yet for Quantic Dream and Cage, chasing this goal has become something of an obsession. The studio’s previous two games, Omikron: The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit were both highly ambitious titles that explored the potential of video game narrative. That potential wasn’t quite fulfilled, but the lessons learned along the way have helped Cage refine his ideas. “When we were working on Fahrenheit, I developed this idea of constraining the storyline like a rubber band,” says Cage. “You can’t break it, but you can play with it, you can deform it, you can stretch it and you can adapt it depending on your actions. It’s a way for the player to see the consequences of his actions, but within the boundaries that the story allows.”
Cage’s ‘rubber band principle’ should give Heavy Rain the focus it needs to succeed, without the need for a branching story structure that spirals out of control. That’s not to say that your actions will not have far reaching consequences. “Where it becomes interesting is when rubber bands affect other rubber bands” says Cage. “What you do in one scene with one character could have consequences in other scenes with other characters and impact on the storyline.”
The four protagonists of Heavy Rain are being slowly revealed to the crowd at E3 one by one. First we saw Madison Paige, the beautiful young woman from the 'Taxidermist' demo. This time we meet Norman Jayden, a hotshot FBI profiler. In a new scene, demoted to us by Quantic Dream, he sits in his Government-issue vehicle, rain ferociously battering the slick black metal. Jayden’s short, brown hair lies tousled above a young but troubled face. His brow appears to be locked into a quizzical frown, like a man who smells trouble round every corner.
Jayden reaches for the door handle and as part of the developer’s wish for the player to always be in control; even such a straightforward action is in the player’s hands. An arrow flashes up on screen by Jayden’s arm and the player can ‘unwind’ the animation at their pace by pushing the analogue stick in the desired direction.
Opening the door and stepping out of the car, we see Jayden is standing in a muddy scrap yard. Gutted shells of cars are piled high around him and the loud whirr, clank and crunch of a car crusher shrieks out from nearby. Jayden walks towards the crusher, huddled under his jacket to shelter from the downpour. Mud splatters up the leg of his expensive suit trousers as he steps through the sludge towards the machine’s operator.
Controlling the characters in Heavy Rain also takes a slight break from convention. Rather than pushing the analogue stick, Jayden moves forward with a squeeze of the right trigger. The stick instead moves the character’s head which, when fully pushed, will turn the character in that direction. The idea is to keep the player moving forward when the camera angle shifts to show the best view.
As Jayden walks up to the rusted yellow contraption, we get a glimpse of the operator, a huge hulking man by the name of Mad Jack. His giant shoulder muscles ripple as he twists in the seat of his machine, his shaved head and vicious snarl give us the impression that Jack isn’t a man you want to get on the wrong side of.
Around Jayden appears a set of dialogue choices. The bright white words swirl slowly around him, like ideas swimming in his head. Cage tell us that when your character is stressed or in pain, the words begin to move faster, shaking and blurring as the character tries to make sense of the thoughts flashing through their head. Right now, though, Jayden is perfectly calm. “Can you turn that thing off?” he yells above the rumble of Jack’s machine. After a brief moment of deliberate hesitation, Jack turns off the crusher and jumps down to Jayden. The FBI man is looking for information on blue Chevrolet, apparently bought from Jack’s yard.
As the two talk, you notice the exceptional detail on the character models. Quantic Dream is one of the few developers with an in-house motion capture studio, and the Parisians have developed their own specific technology for Heavy Rain. This includes the ability to motion capture eye movement, an integral step out of the infamous uncanny valley. There is no dead eye stare here, as the characters eyes flick subtly from side to side as they talk. One of the major things Cage told me was important for Heavy Rain is to use the same actor for every aspect of a characters performance, including body and facial motion capture as well as the voice acting. “Here, we wanted to find one actor to do everything,” Cage tells me. “Basically ‘him’ but in real time 3D. If I introduced you to Norman Jayden, the actor, you would recognise him from the game.”
As you may expect, Mad Jack has had a touch of memory loss. Telling Jayden he doesn’t know anything about the car, he stalks off to get back to his business. Jayden’s not looking to give up, of course, and it’s here that I’m shown Jayden’s unique ‘strength’. Reaching into his jacket, Jayden pulls out a pair of dark glasses and a single black glove. Putting the glasses on, the screen takes on a blue tint. A coloured heads up display points out areas of interest for Jayden, reminiscent of Minority Report's fancy computers. Cage dubs this system the “Added Reality Interface” (ARI). Jayden can use this system to investigate the area, searching for DNA and fingerprints by touching point of interest with the glove. The glove then analyses the data and sends the information to the glasses’ display.
Snooping around Jack's garage building using ARI, Jayden finds tire tracks in what looks like paint. Touching the tracks with his glove shows Jayden exactly what he was looking for, the tire imprints coming from the same car model he's trying to track down. Coming as no surprise to anyone who has seen an episode of CSI, under closer inspection the paint is revealed to be blood which snakes off towards the door of the garage. As Jayden follows the trail of blood, more traces appear on his HUD. The trail leads to an acid bath in the corner of Mad Jack's garage. Looking in, Jayden sees a skull peering out of the murk. "One of your cop friends who came sniffing around here" rumbles Mad Jack, gun in hand, from behind Jayden, clearly with the intent of sending you the same way.
We now see how Heavy Rain deals with action scenes. It's easy to dismiss these scenes as "Quick-Time Events" (QTEs) as directions appear on screen, telling you which button to press. Since their inception in SEGA'S Shenmue, the QTE has found its way into far too many titles. The result is a type of interface that many gamers dismiss as the bane of action games, diluting control to the player down to a single button press that is splashed across the screen. The difference here is that every care seems to have been made to integrate Heavy Rain's QTEs into the experience. Rather than the button dominating the front of the screen, the directions are integrated into the action in real time 3D. They shake and swing as a scuffle between Jack and Jayden takes place. With the actions required by the player holding the control mimicking what is actually happening on screen, rather than "press X to dodge", there's a frantic quality to the action, both on-screen and off. A liberal sprinkling of SIXAXIS motion control only enhances this.
Despite his obvious size disadvantage, Jayden manages to come out on top, pinning Jack down against a wall with a gun to his head. Here we see Jayden's weakness, an addiction to a drug called Triptocaine. The screen blurs as Jayden's withdrawal nausea takes hold. The player must then hold an elaborate, and clearly uncomfortable, combination of buttons as Jayden fumbles with his small bottle of drugs. He eventually ends up passing out. Waking up to find himself locked inside his car, which Mad Jack has placed in the crusher, Jayden manages to frantically escape. Another tête-à-tête with Jack ensues, with the beefy criminal meeting a sticky end underneath the rolling caterpillar tracks of a JCB.
At several points during this scene, it's entirely possible for Jayden to die. But that in no way means that the game, or story, ends. “I’ve always felt that a Game Over screen is actually a failure state for the games designer themself," says Cage. "I couldn’t find a decent consequence for your action, so you need to go back and play again until you’ve done what you’re supposed to do. Here, we’re trying to achieve something where if you die, you know, you die. Jayden died at the scrapyard, he was killed by Mad Jack, and that’s part of the story." This is one of the major areas where Heavy Rain looks to be stepping out of video game conventions, the so-called 'paradigm shift' that makes the game one of the generation's most anticipated. Whether each of the four characters lives or dies, the story will shift accordingly. You could miss all the clues and scenes that would have happened had Jayden stayed alive. However, Cage is adamant that there could be even more interesting experiences, should certain characters die.
It still remains to be seen, of course, whether Heavy Rain's plot can hold the weight of the game's lofty ambitions. With Quantic's tight hold on story specifics, it's a question that won't be answered until the game's release. However, Cage's confidence on the interface and how the story is told is so great, he believes that this game could be the first of many to use this technology as a basis for interactive storytelling. "I think Heavy Rain is a format," says Cage. "Because with this interface, you can pretty much tell any story you want. It doesn’t have to be a thriller like Heavy Rain; it could be a comedy, or a cartoon. Everything is there to tell a story however you want. Make it unique and create really interesting characters that people can relate with. And not worry so much about what button I have to press when. We would love to develop that and to be honest; I would love it if other people were using this interface to tell their own stories."
It's a bold claim, but you wouldn't expect anything less from Cage and Quantic Dream. At the very least, Heavy Rain is an astonishingly good looking adventure, with the best integration of the much maligned QTE I've ever seen. It will also offer something a little different from the inevitable slew of action games to come. That in itself is enough to make you sit up and pay attention. Should the game's potential be filled, we could even see a step forward for video game storytelling. Nothing is certain except that, with Quantic Dream's dedication and determination, you wouldn't bet against it.