PlayStation Fans Should Expect Better Than Detroit: Become Human

If you’ve owned a Playstation home console system (may it be a PS3 or PS4) during the 2010s you have been treated to the best array of video game storytelling available. From campy horror with Until Dawn to redemptive epic action with God of War (PS4) or charming screw-up treasure hunter with Uncharted to bizarre future thinkpiece with Nier: Automata, PlayStation fans have experienced some of the best around. Which is why, with the new release of Detroit: Become Human, PlayStation fans should have the experience with so much of the good they should know when to expect better.

Detroit is the latest from David Cage’s Quantic Dream, a studio with a current shaky standing given the recent reports of poor working conditions, not to mention a somewhat public snafu with actress Ellen Page from their previous title, Beyond: Two Souls. The two previous games under the Quantic Dream umbrella, PS3’s Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls are embroiled in baffling story and logic decisions, but were doing something so different from any other games they held some sort of draw throughout the pre-release cycle and when playing the game. This time around though, I personally (and many others as well) felt some reactive twitching when it was revealed that Detroit was going to try to tell some version of Androids are humanized story beats that have been commonplace in popular media for some time now. Within an hour of Detroit, the coupled feelings on the studio itself and the angst towards the deeper story they wanted to tell came to a head as the used a literal translation of Androids having to sit in the back of a bus. I have not played through, or ultimately all that much of this game, but have heard that there is also a chapter called Railroad in which a good-willed black woman helps transport Androids out of America and into Canada, not to mention the Androids embracing the slogan “We Have a Dream”. Honestly, I don’t even know what to make of this or what anyone is supposed to make of this. Is this supposed to be an alternate Earth where the Civil Rights Movement didn’t happen so it happened in 2038 America with Androids as the stand-in for black Americans? Is this supposed to be an allegory for if you don’t study and learn from history, history is bound to repeat itself? At this point, to me, it mostly seems like a video game play reenacting the Civil Rights era under the umbrella of some amalgamation of futuristic android/robot and human relations from things like Ex Machina and Blade Runner and the super clean white and blue future look from Mass Effect. If this isn’t enough may I highly recommend looking up the “secret ending” to this game and how unexplainably unsubtle and dim it is.

I can’t imagine playing through more of this game seeing what I have seen and knowing what comes in the future. That’s not to say that this game shouldn’t be played though or that everything is bad. The facial animation in this game is incredible and the acting is mostly strong if not a little inconsistent at times. Perhaps I put too much on this game taking itself seriously that I can’t see that campy sci-fi is what they wanted the end product to be. I don’t necessarily believe that to be the case as David Cage has always come across as the Apple (no offense to Apple fans/users) of the video game world, taking himself very seriously by cultivating ideas from other places and acting like they invented it for themselves. I hope that PlayStation fans can start to see the bad from the good now that they have been treated to the good more often than not and can relay that this game doesn’t hold up to new standards set by truly amazing experiences on the console.