‘Detroit: Become Human’ is a narrative driven adventure game, developed by Quantic Dream (Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls), with an emphasis on non-linear methods of experiencing a story.
Description of game from their website: “Enter the near-future metropolis of Detroit in 2038 – a city rejuvenated by the introduction of highly advanced androids that exist only to serve mankind. But that’s all about to change… Step into the shoes of three distinct android characters as this brave new world teeters on the brink of chaos. Your decisions dramatically alter how the game’s intense, branching narrative plays out. With thousands of choices and dozens of endings, how will you affect the future of Detroit?” Oops, did I accidentally watch all of this 9 hour walkthrough for 'research'...?
Analysis
This game is extremely cinematic, with music, ambiences, sound effects and dialogue deliberately falling into the hyper-real style of a Hollywood blockbuster. Its sound world fits its near future setting by blending familiar sounds of present day Detroit with ever-present digital elements to give the world a sci-fi flavour. Each playable character is an android and so there are also appropriately electrical interface sounds and blockbuster sci-fi style ‘wooshes’ when ‘abilities’ are enabled, including a complete sonic shift when Connor uses his heightened senses to investigate a crime scene. Gameplay revolves around the idea of freewill, complimenting the narrative themes, which is explored by providing the player with a continuous series of choices. These decisions might appear while in conversation with other story characters or during action sequences, where the option is usually between taking either a violent or non-violent approach. Music and sound both respond to a player’s choice by matching the tone of the resulting consequences, for example, if a decision results in violent action, as opposed to a non-violent option, the music and sound will change to appropriately underscore this. This is possible because most of the action plays like a series of cutscenes. While gameplay is relatively linear, in that you are ushered from one choice to the next with next to no element of exploration, it is the numerous choices and multiple story paths which provide the incentive to play. It is even possible for a narrative to prematurely end at any time, reinforcing in the player the importance of their decisions.
Once a particular scene of a character’s story has played out, players are shown a ‘narrative tree’ which displays any decisions made, how they impacted the story and where significant deviation from their narrative could have occurred. It does not show the contents of the alternative narrative path but does provide an option to load the game from a checkpoint to remake a decision. However, changing a decision at any point will have a knock-on effect for the entire story so these story-trees also remind the player that each decision matters, encouraging multiple playthroughs.
Using a story tree is a very clear method of mapping out a non-linear narrative: providing an increasing level of detail the closer it is inspected but also showing story structure at a glance. If this project were to move in a similar direction, I would make use of a similar visual story mapping method. Perhaps assigning a sound cue to each junction which alters some part of the story.
Relevance to Project
Constructing a ‘non-linear’ narrative in this way requires choices to appear one after the other related to what came before and changing what might happen after. In a game world setting players can be physically limited in their options. In a real-world space, however, the audience have no restrictions on what they might interact with. Unless they were led down a corridor or path which contained only the available options, one after another, then it becomes impossible to predict // restrict a participant engagement with a space. This causes particular issues with the sound of a production, which cannot behave in the same linear ‘they chose this story path, now play this cue until they reach the next choice’. It must behave in a way that reacts dynamically and evolves depending on a participant’s interaction with a space. This poses different challenges in terms of underscoring a narrative, which remains a key component of this project. I have found that open world // sandbox games still have issues with linearity in their storytelling - i.e the player has reached this quest so will linearly complete it (with perhaps a few deviations based on given choices) or abandon it entirely. However, the most recent Zelda game (Zelda: Breath of the Wind (2017)) moves away from this type of open-world quest storytelling. It also gives the player an unrivalled level of interaction with its game-world while at the same time containing a story which players are encouraged to experience on their own terms. A future case study will explore the role of sound in this game and how elements might be implemented into my own project. For the record, I would class productions developed by Punchdrunk as ‘open world’ exploration of a linear narrative. In this post on his site Seb Chan describes his experience of Then She Fell by Third Rail, another company focused on immersive theatre. This particular production seems to function in a similar way to the narrative structure displayed in 'Detroit: Become Human' (as is noted by Seb with his own example of 'Dragon Age: Origins'). While he makes no mention of sound's role in the production, it seems feasible to me that alternate cues could be triggered dependent on the choices made by participants. Their direction through the space by a cast member would allow them to be forced into a series of choices, the cast member could then lead them down their chosen path and, subsequently, the sound could be triggered to follow them on the chosen path. The overall problem I can see with implementing this form of game sound in a real space lies precisely in this idea of the individual experience. Without the use of headphones (something I'd would like to avoid in this project) how can an participant be assured a unique sonic experience? Since my project will not take place is an empty space large enough, or be a show that complex, this shouldn't be an issue for the moment. It will, however, be an area worth discussing in the final report. Games and Companies Similar to Quantic Dream
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