Detroit: Become Human - First hand impression and interview with the producer, Guillaume de Fondaumière

Releasing worldwide on the upcoming 25 May, Detroit: Become Human is an action-adventure game developed by Quantic Dream for PlayStation 4. We are lucky to get a chance to play Detroit: Become Human before its official release and did an interview with the executive producer, Guillaume de Fondaumière, so here is a short recap of what we experienced and what we discussed about the game!

Detroit: Become Human is a story-heavy video game with 3 main protagonists – Kara, Conner and Markus. Kara is an Android with artificial consciousness that escapes the factory she was made in to discover her newfound sentience, Conner is a police whose hunts down deviant Androids, while Markus is an Android who devotes himself to free the other Androids from servitude.

As you may have know from the descriptions above, they are not the only Android models in the game. There is a lot of the other Android models, some of them are having different specialization (eg: Conner as a police). Apparently, Conner will be more interesting than the other 2 characters since he has the ability to scan evidence and reconstruct the situation.

There is a “decision tree” based on the happened events, and you can always replay a certain scene for a different outcome. There will also be some extra choices on how to respond to a confrontation when you trigger an event, which means more choices you will need to make when you trigger more events.

Choices aren’t easy to make, especially when there are a lot of conflicting moral values. Well, if you can’t make a choice, you can choose to do nothing too (that is an extra choice). These are all of our first-hand impression, we will be talking about more of Detroit: Become Human in the interview below so check it out!

From our interview with Co-CEO and Executive Producer of Detroit: Become Human – Guillaume de Fondaumière, the game is a futuristic dark thriller where you will be able to view the story from 3 different perspectives and every decision you made leads to a different consequence.

Other than the 3 main playable characters, there are more than 300 game characters (Android models and humans) that you may interact or meet with. Although Androids can behave like human beings, the governments set rules to limit them such as wearing the recognizable LED and armband as well as restricting them from entering the public transport in the same carriage as human beings. The Androids are displayed and sold in shops too.

Like cars, Androids comes in different types from the most regular ones to the very high-end ones. For instance, Kara is a pretty regular model that you will see lots of “Kara” taking care of homes or children, while Markus is a very intelligent model that could speak multiple languages.

We are curious about Guillaume’s favorite among the 3 characters, he says that 3 of them are having a distinct personality, all of them are showcasing an interesting story that he believes relatable to each of us. He can’t choose between them (I believe we all will)!

When asked about what is Detroit offering to entice the audience, Guillaume’s answer is the game story and choices. With 20 to 30 hours in Detroit, you will be delving into the world by understanding the complicated consequences and see the birth of a new kind of humanity. As you will also be fully deciding how the story goes, questions are always being asked, and there are quite a lot of moral questions which gives you the chance to answer these question for yourself.

The game shows the different sides of human beings as well. The in-game society is tense, human beings usually treat Androids in a negative way but on the other hand, there are some characters who care for Androids. When the story progress, some Androids will starting to show emotion, and there will be different reactions (to Android showing emotions) of the human beings too.

The game generally takes you 10 to 12 hours for a simple playthrough (not replaying anything), while completing the entire game (seeing all the possible variations) takes you 25 – 30 hours. Just like our life, nothing is white or black in Detroit as well – there is no true ending.

There will be a flowchart showcasing all the possible choice and endings displayed at the end of a scene. You can look back to your choice from with screenshots, and unlock all the other possibilities using interrogation points. You will have to go back and try another choice if you want to know the other ending!

Guillaume also mentioned that the whole team has worked hard for the game, from brain-storming, tracking a thousand story variations to making sure that everything is consistent. The main writer, Daniel Cage has also researched a lot of psychology and technology in order to create the script of Detroit. There are about 115 magazines inside the game with the topics they have researched, you can exchange the points you gained for artwork, trailers, soundtrack, information of each of the characters and tons of documentation too.

Looking at our reality future, Guillaume believes that we will be able to reach the same stage as Detroit (human-like Androids in our life) in the future and in our lifetime, but no one really knows when is the revolution going to come. With Detroit: Become Human, we (including governments and society) can ask ourselves the question now and think about how to make sure the revolution is to the benefit of mankind.

Do the interview and the first-hand impressions add more excitement to you? Well, I did. Detroit: Become Human is releasing worldwide on 25 May (which is just about one month away) so get ready for the Android revolution!

Follow @GamerBraves