I’ve just finished the game Detroit: Become Human on my PlayStation 4 and I’m so overwhelmed by emotions that I felt a compelling need to write them down.
This is the newest game by French developers Quantic Dreams, the same creators of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls and, as they have shown us throughout all these years, has three fundamentals pillars: awesome graphic, exceptional intriguing story and well developed and realistic characters.
“This world doesn’t like those who are different, Markus. Don’t let anyone tell you what you should be.”
This game has really left a lot in me in terms of lessons of life: there are many important elements that come under the scope as love, respect, tolerance and freedom just to name a few, but the whole plot is so multi-layered that listing all of them is nearly impossible.
You play as three androids: the detective Connor, the housemaid Kara and the personal assistant Markus, developing their stories and their relationships either with the other characters and the environment around them.
Although the story takes place in a futuristic Detroit in 2038 A.D. the themes dealt within are as old as the world itself, as racial segregation, freedom and emancipation. There are parts in which you come to experience something similar to an extermination camp, a pacific march and violent riots, all things that we have come to be familiar with.
Androids are afraid to die, they wanna live.
The androids in the game are self-aware of themselves, they can feel human emotions like fear, hate, jealousy, love, empathy; they totally act just like humans and in more than one occasions you are prompted to think that they are more human than Humans themselves.
Without going too much into details and definitely spoiler the game, Detroit is based on a you choose what to do system, already successfully developed in Beyond: Two Souls as there are many different ways to reach the same goal, and every action will have consequences in the future, just like in real life.
One of the features I have loved most is that not only the three major characters have been majestically developed, making you deeply care for their lives, but also minor ones have been meticulously build up to be realistic and important: consider for instance Carl Manfred or Rose Chapman, two of my favourite side character: they’re so natural in the way they move and speak that they could be your neighbors.
Kara and Alice
The androids are so perfectly blend with humans and within human society that it’s almost impossible to say who is who, and soon in the game you won’t notice you are using an android character anymore, unless you’ll be prompted to use their special abilities. (I can tell you that for much of the game plot I didn’t realize that two characters were actually androids and not humans).
There are three soundtracks in the game, one for each of the android stories, mirroring the characteristics of each one of them: cold and synthetic for Connor, epic and dramatic for Markus, and mellow and melancholic for Kara.
Kara to Luther, referring to Alice: “It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile”
Detroit: Become Human in my opinion is so far the best game released in 2018, I suggest you all to get a copy of that because not only it worths every single cent, but it will soon find itself a place deep into you heart.
Mute songs 