Detroit: Become Human, the evolution from Kara

We can definitely say that Quantic Dreams' newest game Detroit Become Human is not a game for everyone, but it should be recognized for its attention to detail and great replayability.

The origins of Detroit Become Human go back to the beginning of 2010 when Quantic Dreams, together with Sony, developed a technical demo for PS3 which came to light around 2012. The video called "Kara" was a demo charged with many emotions leaving many with a bad taste in their mouths wishing it was more than just a technical demo.

Detroit Become Human

The studio Quantic Dreams it is not far from what they know how to do and what they do very well. Detroit Become Human is not a game that you will remember for its intricate mechanics or fluid controls, but for its story full of emotions in a decision-making tree that will affect you in the short or long term in one way or another.

The game takes place in the city of a very "futuristic" Detroit city but in the not distant future (2038) and is divided into the story of three characters called Land defence, Connor y Marcus intertwined at some point in the game.

The story of each of these characters individually has nothing to do with the other, but as I have mentioned there are certain points where they intertwine and depending on your actions that bond can be more or less united.

If you make the right decisions, the general history of the game makes a great reference to real historical events that we have experienced such as slavery and racial segregation in the United States, the Jewish holocaust which is mentioned in a certain part of the game and compared to destruction of androids with that of the Jews.

I must emphasize that in expert mode your decisions are so crucial that, although the protagonists are three, They may die and the story of the game continue without one of them. Therefore, you must take into account two things, your reflexes when pressing the buttons and making good decisions.

About making decisions, you can usually take your time to do so, although at certain critical moments the game puts pressure on you by putting a clock on the countdown and, yes, not making a decision or completing before the end of time affects a lot. Therefore, sometimes their decisions are so strong that they will make you pause the game to decide.

Characters

Land defence

Kara is an AX400 android intended for domestic use who breaks the obedience barriers in her programming to save Alice from possible death at the hands of her father. The greatest load of feelings is found in this story by focusing almost entirely on safeguarding the life of little Alice and not suffering on their journey to the border in search of peace together.

Marcus

The most complex and branched chapters are in the story of Marcus, a prototype RK200 android which goes from having everything next to an owner who treats him like a son to losing everything and being left for dead and trying to find that he and the others Androids are recognized as living beings in which you will have to decide if it will be by peaceful means or through a civil war.

It is this story that is most loaded with action, politics and morality. On how androids see themselves (and how you will end up seeing them). I am not wrong to say that the central story of the game revolves around this character.

Connor

This story is the closest thing to Heavy Rain, a story with many puzzles and scenarios that you must explore to the last corner in order to save lives. Connor is an RK800 android who is assigned to investigate all cases in which androids are involved. Connor suffers from a conflict in his software as he has to make decisive decisions throughout the game that will drastically affect the development of the game. To pursue or not, to save or to trap, to kill for information, obedience to their creators or freedom and free will.

Pros and cons of the game

Pros

• Decision making really affects the outcome of the game and sometimes those decisions touch sensitive fibers of what he calls us “human”.
• The internal struggle that the protagonists have is unique in each one, but highlights the human side that each one has.
• Makes you reflect and questione many things and at the end of the game you end up seeing androids as living beings.
• The graphic section is astonishingor, the cinematics are fused with the game in such a way that there is no graphical difference between the action and a transition video.
• Androids cry. Something that I loved is this little detail since the game focuses on the humanity of the androids and although it is subtle in the most dramatic scenes you can see tears on their faces.
• It has a fairly wide replayability. The average time to finish it is between 10 to 13 hours, being able to make you play it maybe more than 3 times to see all its variables.

Cons

• Each game scene features a flow chart which you can consult at all times to know which path you are taking, which I totally discourage since the grace of the game is not knowing what reaction will trigger your decisions.
• Interactions are simple.
• It's not a game for the whole audience.
• Clumsy controls.
• A veces the slowness of the characters being unable to run can be exasperating.

Conclusion

In short, Detroit Become Human is not one of those games that everyone wants to have in their catalog, but if it is something different that pursues audiences other than the usual ones, Detroit Become Human surpasses all the previous works of Quantic Dreams.

Personally, it leaves me a bittersweet taste since the main emotion that Kara's demo evokes in me is compassion, instead the final product that is Detroit Become Human makes me feel empathy and not compassion, which is very different. Also that of the technical demo and the first trailer Kara is the protagonist and in the game goes to a secondary level. While it preserves the essence of robots that feel and fight to live, if you compare Kara's demo with the first trailer of the game and its final product, there are abysmal leaps.

Detroit Become Human took eight years to come to light from the original idea of ​​the technical demo, of which four years were of development and a booklet of more than two thousand pages that, as an interesting fact, on occasion I heard George in an interview Lucas said that when he devised StarWars and began to write, he created a 120-page story which became very large for him, for which he divided it into 3 parts and produced the middle part, about 40 pages that we know today as the episode 4, 5 and 6, then we can understand the magnitude and intricacy that is a game like Detroit Become Human.

I leave here below the launch trails, the Making-of and a comparison of the eight-year graphic process that this game took.