Detroit: Become Human | PS4 Review

May 30, 2018 Scott Clark

Eight years ago, I played my first game from developer Quantic Dream. Yes, I was late to the party, but Heavy Rain drew me into its narrative better than any other game I had played. Debates about plot holes aside, David Cage gave me a story that I couldn’t stop thinking about while working my 9 to 5. The characters were interesting, the mystery was intriguing, and the visuals were well ahead of their time. After the mildly disappointing Beyond: Two Souls in 2015, I was eagerly anticipating Cage’s next game. It looked to be closer to the formula I craved. Detroit: Become Human may deliver its message in a very heavy-handed fashion, but it’s storytelling, visuals, and acting come together for an experience that shouldn’t be missed.

The setting is Detroit, but roughly twenty years in the future. Citizens may purchase fully functioning androids to work as assistants, child care providers, or any other job. Aside from a noticeable electronic mark on their right temple, these androids look like the real thing. Their advanced artificial intelligence makes them feel human. As the audience discovers, a worrisome number of androids deviate from their programming. These “deviants” have developed a mind of their own and wish to break free of humanity’s slavery of their kind.

You play as one of three androids in Detroit: Become Human. There’s Kara, the caretaker of Alice, who is the daughter of an abusive father. Kara may not be human, but she still has some maternal instincts in her code. She spends the majority of her story arc keeping Alice safe. Connor is assigned as a police detective to investigate the deviants alongside the decorated officer turned alcoholic, Anderson. This android’s stoic nature clashes with his human partner’s brash personality. It doesn’t help that Anderson has an extreme dislike for androids. Finally, there’s Markus, an assistant to an elderly artist whose path is obviously headed for revolution. You follow each of these main character’s stories in bite-sized chunks for the game’s 10-12 hour journey.

Much like Quantic Dream’ previous games, that’s about as much of the story that stays constant for each player. Your decisions along the way affect future outcomes and may even remove a character from the story completely. Where most games of this nature offer different paths with the same destination, Detroit potentially delivers you vastly different endings based on how you played the game. Choose dialogue choices that anger one character, and you might not have other options available for you later. Fail a quick-time event, and you might kill off a character you’ve grown attached to. The number of possibilities is not only staggering, but visible to the player as well. Upon completing each chapter, you’ll see a reverse NCAA bracket with multiple branching paths. It’s up to you whether or not you want to replay the game to see all of the stories or settle for “your” narrative.

Detroit‘s story is intriguing despite the fact that it doesn’t bring a ton of fresh ideas to the table. There are many similarities to the film I, Robot and even HBO’s Westworld. Cage has taken elements shared with these and other properties to offer a narrative that feels original enough to feel like its own. Instead of giving his audience a mystery this time around, however, he’s chosen to focus on a theme that feels very familiar in our political environment.

My only gripe with this is just how heavy-handed the message is handled. Don’t get me wrong, the message is a good one, but it teeters on the line of turning my favorite hobby into politics. That’s a very minor issue, however, as all three character’s individual stories are completely engaging. You never spend enough time with any of them to get tired of their story, and switching to the next arc almost always feels refreshing.

Full disclosure: my opinion of the game’s visuals might be a bit biased, because this is the first game I played on my brand new 4K televison. With that said, this game is stunningly beautiful. The motion capture of each performer is accurate to a scary level of quality. At times, I felt as if I were watching film of Jesse Williams instead of a digital rendering of the actor. It was also fun to see other stars like Lance Hendrikson and Clancy Brown make appearances. On top of the characters, the environments are equally intricate, especially considering you interact with them very little. Walking around Detroit feels akin to a living, breathing open-world RPG instead of what is ostensibly a “choose your own adventure”. I caught myself just soaking in the beauty in each setting, which really felt like their own characters.

Detroit: Become Human Final Verdict

Detroit: Become Human is an experience that shouldn’t be missed by anyone who plays games primarily for their narrative pull. The characters will draw you in, and the realistic and beautiful graphics are more than worth the price of admission. It may try to push its message a bit harder than I prefer, but having a story that feels like your own is very rewarding.

The most enjoyable aspect will be comparing notes with your friends to see how your story arcs diverged. For example, I lost a character in his/her opening scene. I literally missed close to a third of the game because of a choice I made early on. That may sound like I missed out, but I find writing like that to be fascinating. It begs for multiple replays to see other options. I haven’t had a game make me want to play it again in a long time, and that’s a mark of a quality product in my book.

Note: If you’re a Patreon subscriber, you can hear our spoilercast where three of us had completely different endings.