I loved Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain when it was relesed in 2010, at the time I hadn't played a game quite like it before. It had a lot going for it, the multiple choice scenarios, an intriguing mystery, an interconnecting cast of central characters, and its presentation and atmosphere was dark but splendid. It wasn't flawless, the story was inconsistent and the final resolution was surprising but lacking in any logic. Quantic Dream's next game was Beyond: Two souls, which I didn't particularly like much, it rectified some of the problems from Heavy Rain, but created whole new ones and never addressed so many of the flaws it already had. I personally didn't like it for gameplay reasons, too often it felt like a spot the dot, point and click adventure with little player agency.
With five years passed, Quantic Dream's latest title focuses on a near future (2039) where androids are a major part of life. They have taken the everyday manual jobs and roles that would have once been done by humans, which causes fantastic economic growth but dire consequences for much of the working populous, with unemployment rates at thirty seven per cent. Beyond the great facade there are many problems that bubble under in this interpretation of the future, some of these themes are explored directly, while others are only scarcely in the background.
There are three protagonists that you control throughout the game, all of whom are androids built for different roles within society. Kara is a housekeeper who finds herself brought into a broken family with an abusive father. Markus is a carer for a rich artist, and finally we have Connor, an investigative android who chases down deviants. Deviants are androids that have deviated from their programmed behaviour.
From a pure gameplay perspective, Detroit doesn't diverge too much from Quantic Dream's previous games. The plot unfolds by controlling your character through a particular scenario within a contained environment that you have to observe in great detail. The narrative moves forward with the dialogue choices you pick, and the consequences overlap with the other stories in the game. I can't think of a better word to describe it, but it's like taking part in an interactive movie. Of all the three characters, Connor has the most agency in terms of gameplay, because there are numerous scenarios where you'll have to reconstruct crime scenes.
The amount of consequential choices in this game is breathtaking to say the least, far greater than any of Quantic Dream's previous games. On your subsequent playthroughs you'll likely come across entirely new scenarios in locations you hadn't explored before. To best illustrate this, a flowchart comes up every time you complete a scenario, this chart will show you the amount of diverting choices you could have made as well as those that you chose. It also shows you the percentage of people that made the same choice as you. It's really intuitive, and it adds so much to the replay value of the game, however, I would try to avoid it as best you can on your first playthrough. It doesn't give too much away but it will make your return through the game feel more immersive if you don't scrutinise it in too much detail.
The presentation is sublime, the art style and graphics have a level of detail I have only seen in a handful of titles before. The settings aren't just backdrops but characters in themselves. You'll feel the urge to search every nook and cranny, which I'd advise you to do anyway. Because this is a narrative game, the environments do have invisible walls, which does restrict the feel of being in total control of the experience, but it's not a big deal when you consider the type of game this is.
There is a problem with the gameplay though, and it's the controls, they have not changed since Heavy Rain, and the controls were a problem when that was released over eight years ago. They feel clunky, and the characters feel too weighty to move, but the bigger problem is when you move around the environments, which are dotted with things to pick up or interactive with. Too often I'd waste time having to line up precisely with what I wanted to observe, it's not a game breaking issue, but it's a minor frustration that you'll have to endure.
The ideas and tropes that Detroit delves into are in no way new to any form of media, let alone videogames, but the game succeeds and fails on its own premise in equal measure. Let's start with the good shall we. I was thoroughly invested in all three of the main characters and the roles they play in this alternative future, as well as the plot which tries to present us with the social issues of inequality that advanced androids could potentially unleash onto society if we're not careful. Such as the rise of homelessness if manual workers were replaced by androids. The game is also full of small but inventive nuances that had little to do with the gameplay, but are delightful to spot.
Now to the bad. While Detroit tries to deal with complex issues, it does so in a scanty and rather surface level way. Nothing becomes larger than the sum of its parts, it's sad to see big ideas transpire into nothing more than cliched tropes. You could argue that the story is character driven more than it is plot driven, but the writing could have still been a bit more ambitious and wider in scope.
It doesn't help that there is surprisingly few human characters that we really get to know, there is Connor's investigative partner, Hank, but most of the other moments of interactions with humans are too fleeting, and too many fall into the old cliched person who hates androids trope. The game might have benefited from a playable human character, so there was another perspective that could have been woven into the narrative.
Some of the metaphors can also be a bit too on the nose and misguided, while it's easy to see a future where androids are treated as nothing more than servants. I'm not sure if it was a wise idea to include similarities with civil rights protests, and androids having to sit at the back of public transport. Much like the human populous of the game, the androids struggle isn't explored in great detail, it's just given a point of view.
Despite its issues, I loved Detroit, and I'd say with confidence that it is now my favourite Quantic Dream game. It's so refreshing to play something that isn't really like anything else on the market, and for that I applaud David Cage. For all his flaws, his games have an underlining ambition to make the gamer think, rather than just be a passive participant.
I'd recommend this for anyone who is looking for a heavily narrative focused game, but If you have never liked a Quantic Dream game before, stay well clear.
Verdict: 8/10
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