The following trailer is rated S for spoilers.
Thank you to the new Burger King pretzel chicken fries for sponsoring today's episode!
From the developers of games that desperately want to be movies...
but instead give us stuff like this:
"Ja-son!"
comes an extremely self-serious(?) cinematic adventure game, that boldly asks the question...
What if "I, Robot" was ten hours long?
Detroit: Become Human.
Witness the vision of aggressively French person David Cage...
as Quantic Dream brings you another dose of the one game they've been making for thirteen years,
but this time, with robots.
In a game that started off as a simple tech demo for their new engine
that got turned into a full-blown choose-your-own-adventure story
and ended up feeling...well, like a really long tech demo.
Guess we should've seen that one coming.
Meet humanoid androids that are basically just people with a Windows loading icon on the side of their heads,
when they suddenly develop free will and emotions for some reason.
They'll rise up against their objectively horrible human masters...
in a revolution that will be completely overshadowed by their inability to open a door.
Discover Quantic Dream's vision of Detroit,
a future city where almost everything is identical to now, except for the incredibly advanced A.I.,
who are somehow more affordable than most used cars
where you'll follow the path of three different androids.
Featuring...
A maidbot trying to save a little girl,
a sensitive caretaker that is trying to liberate his not-people,
and a robot android hunter, who somehow sucks worse than the actual cops.
Watch as Become Human throws every sci-fi story about artificial intelligence into a giant blender,
and hits you with an absolute smorgasbord of tropes like...
Robots doing art.
Robots finding love.
Partnering up the hard-boiled cop who hates robots, with a robot.
Horror robot junkyards.
And of course, stripper bots.
In a storyline that borrows from practically every story about androids you've ever seen,
yet still has time for gruesome investigation scenes
and overt allusions to the movie "Se7en".
Look, it just wouldn't be a David Cage game without a weird apartment full of crazy wall writing, okay?
Uncover the many winding paths of "Become Human",
as seemingly every dialogue option, quick time event, and last-second decision,
unlocks different routes and events that can change your playthrough dramatically,
that are listed on a big flowchart at the end of every chapter, allowing you to go back and unlock different outcomes.
Which sounds great until you realise that the key to replayability is the game being fun to play in the first place.
And that telling you exactly where you messed up kind of saps all the mystery out of the narrative.
In gameplay that feels less about building your own story,
and more like playing a menu at a cheap buffet.
Gyrate those thumbsticks for that classic Cage gameplay once again
as you interact with the world through a series of directional prompts, quick time events, and button holds.
That are still mostly used to force you to do mundane stuff like taking out the trash in the name of "realism"...
when 90% of the time you'd rather just put down the controller and watch.
Until you unlock the secret best way to play all Quantic Dream games.
Failing as much as possible...ON PURPOSE.
So achieve that sentience, and get ready to rise up against your human masters.
In a game that tries to create a touching narrative about free will, humanity, and co-existence,
but ends up coming off just like the androids do: pretty to look at, but completely generic.
Look, if even the U.I. wants to leave, you KNOW something's wrong.
Is it just me or is it super weird that they can just remove the one thing that lets you know they're androids?
And why does Connor have to taste blood to scan it? Why would you design these things like this?!
[sighs] I need a nap.
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