As someone who hasn’t played a Quantic Dream game since Indigo Prophecy (2005), I wasn’t that interested in playing Detroit: Become Human. But after an hour of playing the demo and getting different outcomes, all I can say is, “Holy shit, I can’t wait to play this game when it releases next month,”.
In this small portion of the game, you play as Connor who has been shown at the E3 conference. I will say it was a little surreal playing as Connor after only seeing him on E3 shows and other conventions. You start the demo with Connor coming up to the apartment after being summoned by Cyberlife to help with a hostage situation.
The game feels like any Quantic Dream game where you have to move the analog stick to pick up something in the area. I love the camerawork in the game, it feels like a tight kind of camera. This is also a beautiful looking PS4 game. I was playing it on a base PS4, so I can’t even imagine what it’s going to look like on a Pro.
When playing as Connor in Detroit: Become Human, investigating the scene is key. This was done in the demo by combing through the rooms and finding information that can lead to many different scenarios depending on how much or little you find. When searching the environment through the Detective Mode-like scanner, finding clues fills up a percentage meter that increases your chances of success the more you piece together and could lead to certain advantages, like getting the suspect to trust you.
In my first playthrough of the game, I had gotten up to 88%. Wanting to quickly finish up, I performed a self-sacrifice where Connor shielded the hostage, Emma, and gets shot from behind while the android hostage-taker, Daniel, is falling to his death. This scene was great to play through, seeing as we didn’t get to see this in the previews they showed at E3.
Going back to play the game from the beginning to do a new scenario, I did find it kind of shitty that when you go and talk to the SWAT captain, Allen, he doesn’t really tell you that much about the android hostage taker. Despite that, the game does want you to explore around and learn these things for yourself, but I still couldn’t help thinking that he was pretty useless in the opening part of the game. Maybe that changes the more you interact with him during the course of the game, but even in every ending scene when the hostage situation is over, he always has a blank look on his face.
There were a couple scenes that I had seen after I had finished the demo the first time.
In my second playthrough, I had attempted to get 100% in the percent meter. I was successful, and I saw the scene that gets both you and Emma out alive; it was very interesting. I also picked up on some things that I missed the first time that helped Connor gain Daniel’s trust, like turning the helicopter around and some other things that weren’t so initially helpful that might actually be beneficial in the main game, like saving this random officer who is bleeding out on the balcony. In the end, Connor got Emma away from Daniel, who then gets gunned down by snipers.
In my third playthrough, I utilized the gun that you get from the deceased officer. The gun is an interesting mechanic in the game because you can waste your opportunity to use it. When Daniel asks Connor if he is armed, you can lie or tell the truth. I thought that it was a little strange you only go through that bit of dialogue when you actually do have a gun. Not that it matters that much because most people are going to get the gun anyway, but it did somewhat break the immersion a little. When Connor gets close enough, you shoot Daniel in the face.
In my last playthrough, I did a run where I knew nothing about Daniel or his relationship with Emma. In this situation, you also don’t know the reason he rebels against the family or gets himself a gun. It leaves you at 48%, only to get lower when you get outside; it was an interesting thing to do. In the end, before Daniel attempts to jump with Emma, I had a high enough percentage to do a quick time event to get Emma out the way and have Connor fall off the roof along with Daniel.
Detroit: Become Human’s demo was an amazing experience, seeing as I haven’t played a Quantic Dream game in a long time. With just so many choices in the demo, I can’t wait to play through the full game fresh and then replay it to get different choices. Detroit: Become Human releases on May 25th.