Detroit: Become Human

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***Detroit: Become Human*** is a cinematic neo-noir thriller game developed by Quantic Dream and published for PlayStation 4, releasing also for Microsoft Windows. The game is the company's 5th title and their fourth interactive drama. It is written and directed by Quantic Dream's founder and co-CEO David Cage. The game itself was released on May 25, 2018 and the Digital Premium Version was released a day before on May 24, 2018 for PlayStation 4. For Microsoft Windows, it was released on December 12, 2019, as an Epic Games Store exclusive. It received a wider release on the Steam store on June 18, 2020.

## Premise

Set in Detroit during the year 2038, the city has been revitalized by the invention and introduction of androids into everyday life. But when androids start behaving as if they are alive, events begin to spin out of control. Step into the roles of the story’s pivotal three playable characters (Kara, Connor, and Markus), each with unique perspectives, motivations and abilities as they face their true selves and question their values. These three androids are present throughout the game as they follow through an emotional journey with choices that must be taken in order for their ultimate 'cause', which can be defined many different ways depending on the values of the player. The plot of the game deals with a variety of mature themes that explore moral ground and each player decision affects what will happen.

## Chapters

Not every android is included in every chapter. The chapters can be found below, with each containing a flowchart and the technique used to gain 100% completion.

## Gameplay

*Detroit: Become Human* is played from a third-person view, which is subject to a set and controllable perspective. The right analogue stick on the DualShock controller is used to interact with objects and observe one's surroundings, the left is for movement, and R2 scans an environment for possible actions; the motion controls and touchpad are also employed. The gameplay is similar to the company's 3rd title *Heavy Rain*, though similar inputs like prompted quick time events and dialogue decisions are still part of the gameplay. Therefore, the story will branch out depending on which choices are made.

For action sequences or contextual interactions, players are presented with various symbols, requiring them to either press buttons, move the right analogue stick in a certain way, or shake or tilt the controller. In action sequences, such as when the playable character is being attacked, failure to execute these commands takes the story along a different path, and certain mistakes can lead to a character's death. However, in some cases, a timed sequence plays out before the playable character meets his/her demise. The game presents several routes that players can take. To end the playable character's predicament, players have to find the correct route before the timer at the bottom runs out.

All playable characters can die in the course of the story. If a playable character dies, the game does not end, and play control switches to another character, with the events of the previous character's death affecting the story to some extent. Therefore, the story can continue without any of them. (However, the character of Connor can die and be replaced with a new model multiple times, though this impacts his relationships with some characters.)

Higher gameplay difficulties result in shorter duration for players to analyze situations and respond to them. Additionally, making choices early in the game can lock out dialogue and action choices later in the game.

A flowchart feature is included every time the player concludes a chapter so that the player is enabled to check out on what they had missed out on. The flowchart could also be accessed by pausing the game. Players can compare the choices they have made with other players with visual percentages labeled next to their designated choices.

For some major decision points, players will have the ability to rollback to the beginning of the checkpoint to choose a different path. This will not be available all the time.

Also, levels abound with magazines for players to read, providing backstory to the game universe (these can be re-read at leisure in the Extras section of the main menu).

An unusual aspect of the game is that it features a non-playable protagonist, an android named Chloe, who is only encountered in the game's menu, and who undergoes character development of her own as the game progresses.

## Development

*Detroit: Become Human* is based on Quantic Dream's 2012 PlayStation 3 technology demonstration "KARA", which received strong reactions and an award at the LA Shorts Fest. David Cage wanted to make the demo into a full game, despite not originally having planned to, because he was curious as to what would happen next. He took inspiration from Ray Kurzweil's *The Singularity Is Near*, which explains that the rate at which human intelligence develops pales in comparison to that of a machine. Therefore, Cage proposes that machines may one day have emotions.

Androids were designed with reference to artificial organs, how their energy would be generated, and human eye movement. An android's abilities were determined by each of their given profession. Experts in artificial intelligence were consulted to discern which technological advancements were the most feasible.

Detroit was chosen as the setting to revitalize a city that had succumbed to economic decline after a historical contribution to American industry. The developers traveled to Detroit to conduct field research, taking pictures, visiting abandoned buildings, and meeting people.

In late 2013, Cage was in preproduction on *Detroit: Become Human*, which he said would build upon his work on *Heavy Rain* and *Beyond: Two Souls*. Cage's script – between 2,000 and 3,000 pages – was first relayed to the design team while programmers created the graphics as well as a new game engine with advancements in features like rendering, dynamic lighting, shading, bokeh, and physical cameras. In October 2016, the screenplay was completed after more than two years. Writer Adam Williams was hired to help finish and flesh out the story. Cage used charts and diagrams to see where the choices would end up; penning "five or six thousand pages of notes".

The casting extended to Los Angeles, London, and Paris in search for more than 250 actors to portray 513 roles. The actors were scanned in 3D, whose models were then made into characters. Shooting and animation followed, and on 8 September 2017, the performance capture was finished after 324 days.

Director of photography Aymeric Montouchet used "thick grain and shaky long lens" with shallow depth of field for Kara, "small, tight grain" and a blue palette for Connor, and orange and white colors for Markus. The game was released to manufacturing on April 23, 2018, after four years of production.

## Release

*Detroit: Become Human* was announced on 27 October 2015 at a Sony press conference during Paris Games Week. It appeared at E3 2016 and E3 2017, showing trailers of additional playable characters and gameplay. Following E3 2017, Cage confirmed that the game would be released in 2018, later specified as the first or second quarter therein. The game was released on May 25, 2018 for PlayStation 4.

In 2017, again at a Sony press conference during Paris Games Week, a new trailer featuring Kara and gameplay was shown. A demo of the first scene, "The Hostage", was made available on the PlayStation Store on April 24, 2018, accompanied by an Amazon Alexa skill that guides the player through the demo. The game was promoted in Japan with the live action short film, *Tokyo: Become Human*. This was followed by a launch trailer and two animated English-language shorts introducing Elijah Kamski, the creator of the androids, and Chloe, the first android to pass the Turing test. If pre-ordered, *Detroit: Become Human* would come with a dynamic theme and digital soundtrack. The soundtrack was available for streaming on June 22, 2018.

On December 4, 2018, the standard edition of *Detroit: Become Human*, *Beyond: Two Souls* and *Heavy Rain* were released as the *Quantic Dream Collection.*

On March 20, 2019, it was announced that *Detroit: Become Human* would be released for Microsoft Windows along with *Heavy Rain* and *Beyond: Two Souls*. It will be self-published by Quantic Dream and sold exclusively on the Epic Games Store for a year before appearing elsewhere. Pre-orders for the Epic Games Store release of *Detroit: Become Human* opened in November 2019, with the game slated for a December 12 release.

On May 25, 2020, the demos of all three games became available on Steam. Quantic Dream announced that the full games would be available on Steam on June 18, 2020.

*For promotion materials see:* *Detroit Become Human* Trailers

### Soundtrack

Three different composers (Philip Sheppard, Nima Fakhrara, and John Paesano) worked on this game and composed a unique soundtrack for each playable character.

*For article see:* *Detroit: Become Human* Original Soundtrack

### Digital Deluxe Edition

The Digital Deluxe Edition of *Detroit: Become Human* became available for purchase on May 24, 2018. It includes the following:

* *Detroit: Become Human* PS4 Digital Full Game
* *Heavy Rain* PS4 Digital Full Game
* Digital Art Book
* Digital Deluxe Soundtrack
* 2 X *Detroit: Become Human* Dynamic Themes
* 10 X *Detroit: Become Human* PSN Avatars

## Reception

 Metacritic | PC: 80/100
 Publication
 *VideoGamer.com* | 4/10

*Detroit: Become Human* received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. *Destructoid's* Chris Carter said that, despite tiring of Quantic Dream's penchant for detective stories, he enjoyed its execution and Connor's "calm demeanor and android origin". Carter praised the setting, calling it "believable" and "captivating", while also noting that the "smaller moments" were among its strengths. Michael Goroff of *Electronic Gaming Monthly* favored the fact that the playable characters were androids because their second-class citizenship status created an "effective viewpoint". The controls and quick-time events were also subject to approval. Goroff lauded the "incredibly satisfying and sometimes unexpected" impact of the collective decisions and declared this the game's "biggest accomplishment". Writing for *Game Informer*, Kimberley Wallace agreed with Carter's assessment of the "little moments" and said the character development was "fun to watch", well-handled, and the "highlight of the game". She appreciated how the branching narratives affected the latter parts and complimented Quantic Dream for the "impressive" achievement. Paul Tamburro at *Game Revolution* wrote that *Detroit: Become Human* boasted a "compelling world ... enriched by fantastic performances and state-of-the-art motion-capturing". He commended Curry, Dechart, and Williams for their "engrossing performances" and said the game was among "the most well-acted" around. He also felt the choices "drastically" changed the story.

Peter Brown of *GameSpot* welcomed the variety of cycling between characters for ensuring player engagement. The game's "most dreadful and horrific scenes" made a considerable impression on Brown, some of which he found to be "truly unforgettable". Additionally, he remarked that the visuals were beautiful and "captivating to behold". *GamesRadar+'s* Andy Hartup praised Quantic Dream for making "an interactive story capable of provoking genuine, honest, and varied emotions". He thought the consequences of the decisions were "utterly delightful", albeit rarely, and saw the setting as "beautiful". Hartup liked the character models, calling them "the most remarkable you’ll see in gaming", and favoured the eyes in particular. On the decision-making aspects, he proclaimed *Detroit: Become Human* "the new gold standard ... for meaningful choice in gaming". Lucy O'Brien at *IGN* wrote that the game "manages to be a frequently moving melodrama that bends to your choices with meaningful results". She also praised the acting of Curry, Dechart, and Williams, observing different benefits to each character. O'Brien appraised the general plot as "big, ambitious fun" and the environments as "beautifully detailed". Like Goroff, Wallace, Tamburro, and Hartup, O'Brien found the "branching paths to be multiple and deep", while also complimenting the flowcharts, a feature Colm Ahern of *VideoGamer.com* singled out as one of the game's few redeeming qualities.

Conversely, Carter criticised the game's "surface level exploration" of the Ship of Theseus, questioning the director's subtlety. He blamed the weakness of Kara's story on Cage's writing, called the portrayal of domestic and substance abusers "cartoonish", and complained about occasional "wooden acting". Goroff's only annoyance with the controls concerned its motion-sensitive feature, especially disparaging its use in quick-time events. Wallace thought Markus' story was the worst of the three, citing "predictable speeches" and "black-and-white decisions" as the primary problems. She suggested that the narrative suffered "heavy-handed" attempts at historical parallels, and noted, as Carter did, that its representation of abuse seemed "exploitive due to the over-the-top antics". She felt the use of the motion controls and touchpad was "unintuitive" and wanted more variety from the gameplay. Tamburro faulted the opening act for its "slow" and "dull" interactions, the quick-time events for their abundance, and occasional story paths for being "highly questionable". Brown viewed Markus as "remarkably lacking in nuance" and the allegories to actual history as "on-the-nose" and "distracting". He commented that the flowchart exposition was "ultimately detrimental" to player immersion and wished there was a way of disabling it. Hartup disliked the moments in which themes were either "fumble[d]" or "pushed too far". O'Brien observed multiple plotholes and found a considerable amount of "clumsy" exposition and dialogue. Ahern wrote in his verdict, "*Detroit: Become Human* wants to move you ... The thing is, it really doesn't ... when the narrative is as cringey and ham-fisted as it is you won't want to play through it multiple times".

## Sales

*Detroit: Become Human* reached fifth place on the UK chart after two days of release. In its first week, the game topped both the overall sales and console sales charts. Though it sold fewer copies than *Beyond: Two Souls* and *Heavy Rain* in that region, Cage and executive producer Guillaume de Fondaumière claimed *Detroit: Become Human* was the studio's most successful launch yet.

The NPD Group later confirmed it had a sales growth in excess of twenty percent over *Heavy Rain*. It was the third best-selling video game overall, generating the third-most revenue in the US, and sold the most out of any title on the PlayStation Store in May 2018, having been available for six days.

The game released in Japan with 39,548 units (which rose to 56,480 after two weeks), second to *Dark Souls: Remastered*. In the UK, the second week also saw it become the second best-selling video game (behind *FIFA 18*). The game sold one million copies after the first two weeks. For the week ending 10 June, its physical sales fell to fourth place in the UK. Its Japanese sales hit 74,458 copies on 17 June, but dropped from the country's console chart one week later, when the game was placed ninth on the UK individual formats chart. Two months after release, a total of 1.5 million people had played the game.

The game became Quantic Dream's the fastest selling game and by that December, it had sold more than 2 million copies, approaching 3 million the following month. In October 2019, worldwide sales had reached 3.2 million copies on PlayStation 4. A press release from Quantic Dream reported in August 2020 that it had sold over five million copies across all platforms.

## Fan Projects

### Text Transcription

The chapter by chapter text transcription of the game made by an anonymous fan is featured here: https://detroitbecometext.github.io/

### Technological Analysis

The analysis of every technology in the game compared to real technologies made by anonymous fans is featured here: https://viz.envisioning.io/detroit/

## Accolades

*Detroit: Become Human* won the award for "Best of E3" at *GameSpot's* Best of E3 Awards, and was nominated for "Best PlayStation 4 Game" and "Best Adventure Game" at *IGN's* Best of E3 Awards, and for "Adventure Game" at *Hardcore Gamer's* Best of E3 Awards.

## Notes

* Since *Detroit* sounds like the word *droid* (short form of *android*), the title of the game can be interpreted as a pun (*Droid, Become Human*).
* The working title of the game was *Horizon.*
* In the original draft, the game featured four protagonists instead of three, but they were cut due to the increasing complexity of the branching narrative.
	+ "Traci" was originally the name of the fourth protagonist. According to the artbook *L'Art de Quantic Dream*, the fourth protagonist was a deviant android who could go by the name Nathalie. She would have disguised herself as a human to work as a journalist and control the public's opinion of the revolution.
* *Detroit: Become Human* had a development budget of €30 million.
* The game was worked on by the 180 staff members at Quantic Dream and also outsourced to the Philippines, China, Vietnam, and India.
* The game has 35,000 camera shots, 74,000 unique animations, and 5.1 million lines of code.
* Two scenes from the game were cancelled for how violence was portrayed.
* The trailer shown at Paris Games Week was heavily criticized for its portrayal of child abuse, specifically the scene in which a 9-year-old girl is attacked and even killed by her father. This led to some negative publicity for the game in UK tabloid newspapers such as the *Daily Mail*.
	+ Bryan Dechart defended the trailer, saying the story "elicits empathy".
* The game features a restriction that will block out any kind of recording functionality from the PS4. Players will still be able to take screenshots and videos from the game to store on their PS4, but they won't be able to share them to social media, PlayStation Messages, Communities, or even their activity feed. Any attempt will result in the message "Captures that cannot be used with this feature are selected."
	+ This feature was removed later on, as players can now share their captured screenshots and videos without any restrictions.

* David Cage hinted at a possible sequel for the game in one of his tweets.

## Media

### Concept Art

See also Category:Artwork.

CorktownCarlos Ortiz's house ("Partners")Abandoned apartmentCyberLife Warehouse and DocksCyberLife Warehouse and DocksCyberLife Warehouse and DocksEden ClubEden ClubEden ClubConnor and Hank in Riverside Park ("The Bridge")Stratford Tower ("The Stratford Tower")Connor and Amanda in the Zen GardenDPD Central StationJerichoStratford Tower ("The Stratford Tower")Rose's FarmDPD Central StationDPD Central StationMarkus

### Videos

Detroit Become Human - PGW 2017 Gameplay Trailer PS4Detroit Become Human - E3 2016 Trailer PS4Detroit Become Human - Teaser Exclusive to PS4Kara - Heavy Rain Quantic Dream Tech DemoDetroit Become Human - E3 2016 LiveCast PS4
## References

1. ↑ Quantic Dream Fan Page on Twitter
2. ↑ David Cage's Reddit AMA
3. ↑ David Cage's Twitter

## External links

* *Detroit: Become Human* - Wikipedia
* *Detroit: Become Human* on PlayStation's Official Website