Detroit: Become Human is Beyond Anything David Cage Has Done Before

I‘ve always had a bit of a rough relationship with David Cage’s narrative-driven games. Sure, Heavy Rain was novel when it released back in 2010, but the gaming industry is now awash with titles that prioritise stories over gameplay mechanics. How do you do something really special in a field which has been bled so dry?

Well, if Detroit: Become Human has anything to say about it, the answer is by throwing some androids into the mix. In the world of Detroit, players take control of three lead characters: Kara, Connor, and Markus. Each have different motivations and goals, but they’re all connected by a common truth: they are all androids in a world where being so means being a subservient citizen.

Sounds pretty typical, right? Well, where the game manages to make things interesting is  in the execution of these narratives. In the demo available to the press, players take control of Connor; an android hostage negotiator, tasked with talking-down a rogue robot who has kidnapped the recently-orphaned daughter of his masters. You must explore the apartment of the deceased couple and collect clues about their past, before exiting onto the roof and confronting the wayward android; ideally, before he can kill the young girl. It’s pretty intense stuff.

Where Become Human sets itself apart from the likes of Heavy Rain, though, is that it really makes you feel like you’re playing as an android. Absent are the obnoxious ‘X will remember that’ notifications of other titles; instead, learning information will increase a percentage which calculates your chances of a successful negotiation. Conversely, choosing a precarious dialogue option will decrease this percentage, so you’re constantly getting real-time info on your probability of success.

What this translates to is a huge amount of replayability. For the first time I tried the demo, I managed to get around 65% – a fairly low amount, which resulted in the hostage-taker throwing himself off of the building after a brief, heated argument with protagonist Connor. After trying again, however, I reached 90%. I did this by investigating every possible clue in the apartment, and being more empathetic towards the android’s situation. He still threw himself off of the building, but I felt better about myself.

Then, I did it: 100%. The game uses a mechanic that wouldn’t be out of place in a Batman game, where you recreate a crime scene by using contextual information scattered around (gunshot wounds, strewn furniture – that kind of thing). By properly analysing each of these scenarios and learning all I could about the family and their relationship with the android, I managed to get inside his digital head; I had become a detective as much as a negotiator.

Whereas aforementioned titles like the Arkham series will give you detective-lite mechanics, Detroit: Become Human made me feel like I was solving a mystery in real-time. I had the option to do everything haphazardly and run in guns blazing, but if I took my time and weighed the situation, I could have a genuine input into the course of events.

Of course, this demo only encompassed one-third of the playable characters. I have no idea how the others will handle, or whether their complexities will be nearly as engaging as Connor’s. What I do know is that the facial animations for each character were absolutely stunning, which gave huge amounts of nuance to arguably lifeless robots. It’s an impressive feat, and one which could potentially sway doubters in the game’s favour.

It’s still too early to say whether Detroit: Become Human will be able to expand Cage’s fans beyond the hardcore following, but it’s definitely piqued my interest. If the rest of the game can keep up the fantastic moments of drama created within Connor’s story, then I can really see myself jumping on-board the hype train.