Quantic Dream’s Cage Talks Heavy Rain, Realism in Fantastic Settings

David Cage, founder of French studio Quantic Dream, talked about the upcoming PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain. in a recent interview. The development studio has given gamers Omikron: The Nomad Soul co-starring David Bowie and Indigo Prophecy or Fahrenheit in Europe.

The article has some very straight talk about the challenges faced in designing games today. Cage discusses using ultra realistic characters in fantastic settings without breaking the suspension of disbelief. He also compares basic video game structure, such as that used in Uncharted, to porn films, revealing that Heavy Rain will break that mold using interactive story telling.

The big difference between Uncharted and what we’re doing here is that Uncharted was still structured like a video game. It gives you a bit of story, then action, then a bit of story, then action - like porn movies, when you think about it.

Porn movies are structured in exactly the same way, except that the action is not the same (laughter), but it’s the same structure. Most video games are done like that. It’s one thing to do a great cutscene, even if it’s real time. It’s another thing to try to tell the story as you play, so the story’s not told through cutscenes — it’s told through gameplay. So you don’t need acting performance in cutscenes. You need interactive performance.

The Ban Hammer is brought up as Cage talks about decapitation being more acceptable than revealing a woman’s breasts in video games.

The article’s length is daunting, but it’s an entertaining, worthwhile read for anyone interested in Heavy Rain or video game development.
via Gamasutra