Detroit: Become Human is from the developers behind the interactive drama games Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. It is, therefore, as you’d expect, a story driven game where your choices will shape the plot. It comes in various short chapters and focuses on three protagonists. It is set in a future where lifelike androids has been developed, and accepted by society. There are some against them, simply due to the fact that they are encroaching by taking away people’s jobs.
The core organization that had developed these androids, and thus holds power in many facets of people’s lives, is CyberLife. They have managed to create androids for every situation. Androids are used as household assistants that do everything for you, they are used as sale assistants and AI powers the transport. The androids are designed to look just like humans and mimic their body movements. While they don’t need to, they will appear to be breathing and blinking. The biggest telltale is that they have a small light ring on the right of their forehead. This changes color, most commonly blue when they’re thinking but we see that it can be yellow or red too (with expected changes in the behavior).
The opening sequence sets our expectations on what is the norm of this world and how much humanity has come to rely on the androids. It also presents the classic question of free will, as we see that some androids appear to have feelings and gone rogue. Humanity has come to view android as mere machines and tools with no need for respect. The gameplay is simple, although you can decide on either a casual difficulty or the experienced difficulty. This only changes the difficulty of the button prompts since the game is mostly QTEs with a bit of walking and dialogue choices. You’ll use a combination of the face buttons, analogue sticks and surprisingly, the touchpad, to perform actions.
The developers still haven’t quite worked out all the minor kinks in the gameplay that had been present in their previous games. Camera angles are mostly fixed, and it’ll change suddenly when you’re walking around or after a cutscene. It can be confusing and disorientating when this happens unexpectedly. Characters mostly do a slow walk and it feels so cumbersome and unresponsive as they’ll start turning a second after you intended, or stop a second after you intended.
The game follows three androids, Connor, Kara and Markus. Connor is sent to assist in the police force and he is helping to investigate “deviants”. Deviants are androids that had gone against their programming and harmed humans, although based on the behavior we see, this is more like that they had gained true sentience. Kara is a household android, but her household is abusive towards her. While Connor is also a household android with family problems of their own. Their three stories will eventually intertwine with each other.
It is a strong and solid story; it captures your attention almost immediately with its premise. While it takes a bit longer until the trio cross paths, the buildup is worthwhile. Connor’s story is probably the best, followed by Markus and finally Kara. While they share the same themes, one of discovering themselves and humanity, they take different directions. Connor is more investigative due to his role in the police, while Markus is more aggressive, and Kara is based on family and love.
There are plenty of choices that would affect the direction of the story but the “true ending” so to speak, where everyone survives and the world has changed for the better, is strong. It won’t wow you or give you surprises, but it was a satisfying story that takes around 10-14 hours. The only negative with replayabilty and getting other endings is that there is no easy way to skip sections of the story. You’re forced to replay from a point until the end and this can be draining and repetitive. It was always a flaw of the games by Quantic Dreams.
That being said, the developers have included a flow chart to show how your decisions arrived to a specific action. This is useful and makes it easier to determine what you need to do differently in order to influence the story. That being said, even though there are lots of choices, the main story events will still be the same, and you’ll end up in similar positions. Despite using only QTEs, the chase scenes and other action sequences can actually work quite well. However, the button prompts seem to have a short countdown, you have a shorter window than expected to press the correct button and it doesn’t help when they’re constantly shaking. The graphics are phenomenal and looks absolutely fantastic. It can switch from plasticky looking environments to places where it is bursting with detail. The character models can seem a bit too smooth at times but the environments are bursting with detail.
Overall, Detroit: Become Human is a great game that improves upon its predecessors from the developers. It has a strong story that captures your attention pretty much from the get go. While some of the gameplay is clunky, it is easy to overlook when you do end up caring about the fate of the characters, and where the story will lead to.
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