Detroit: Magically Become Human

Quantic Dream's 'Detroit: Become Human' is a game about robots. Robots that suddenly, magically, become human (ergo the name).

Detroit isn't a game about sentience. It isn't about life and what life is. It isn't existential. It is about being a minority. 

In Detroit androids begin coming to life and they are treated poorly for it because they aren't like everyone else. This is as deep as it gets. 

In a work with such an excellent premise and a luscious budget it is easy to wish for something a bit more ambitious, but it is clear the studio can barely handle a basic discussion about egalitarian rights, often fantasizing success and brutalizing failure unrealistically. For all its shortcomings, however, Detroit succeeds in providing spectacle.

Playing the game on a PS5 most likely provided the PS4 Pro rendition of the game (smoothing out any hiccups with the extra performance). It looked phenomenal. Facial capture and animations, along with fine detail in the faces, were excellent. The game world never fails to deliver in scale, either. Detroit seems to bustle with life, whether in a well maintained area or the detritus of the suburbs. It looks good.

Directorially the game also seems to shine. This is a fine example of having very little to say, but saying it quite well. Scenes are dramatic and moving. Engaging. Immersive. A shining example of interactive fiction hooking you. But, hooking you to eventually tell you... what? Treat people nicely, no matter what they are made of. Or, stand up for yourself! Don't let them drag you down!

Just be yourself. 

It is quite trite.

It is also difficult to recommend, with copious amounts of mature content (from swearing to sexual, gore and violence). This isn't one that is worth the price of entry, sadly, beyond an academic analysis of its stellar narrative design. Stellar narrative design without narrative content worthy of it.

It is sad there is so little intelligence behind Detroit: Become Human. It is often dramatic for the sake of drama, with contrived scenes and motives. It utterly fails to capitalize on the premise.

I have begun calling it Detroit: Become Magically Human, after the sudden transformation these robots seem to undergo. They understand human emotion, they understand the human condition, they have a moral compass. Pretty impressive stuff to just randomly happen to a machine. It is a pity the game did not follow suite. It doesn't seem to understand any of that stuff.

The Horror of The Outer Wilds

 I have played frightening games. Games whose monsters chase and jump and scare, and then inevitably find their way into my stream of gunfire or the tip of my blade. Games where skill (And destructive weaponry) dismantles horror.

There is a sort of unmitigated terror, however, which haunts me. Unintentional, perhaps, as well. It is the reason I dislike the 2014 Christopher Nolan film Interstellar or the idea of swimming in the ocean. 

The belittling, isolated horror of the grand in scope, against whose mysteries and gravity you have no control and little power.

Enter the exceptional interactive fiction of The Outer Wilds (2019, Mobius Digital, published by AnnaPurna). A game that captures the helplessness of space in lovely 22 minute chunks.

The systems in The Outer Wilds are complex. We have time as a constant pressure and gameplay mechanic. We have gravity (to which I have met my demise many times). We have frictionless velocity in space. Orbit. Atmosphere. The ways in which you are asked to interact with this game--the things which you must keep in consideration--are bigger than you. And, they remind you of that fatally.

You will die in this game. It is a mandate. A 22 minute mandate if you are cautious, much shorter if you are not. The ways and methods for which you die continually assert that you work within the games framework. It does not work within yours. You are isolated. You are small. The solar system and its numerous dangers are so very, very large. Yet, the game has a whimsy as well. A charming dallop of character and humor. 

You begin in a quaint little village. Your nameless character (most often called "Hatchling") belongs to a race of pleasant four-eyed yokels. They are musically inclined. They love space travel. The engineer jokes with you about starting the wooden launch pad on fire during launch. It is homey and a touch bizarre. 

It becomes clear early on that the game places an emphasis on knowledge, often mixing familiar facts (stages of the sun) with speculative (Quantum theory). It then goes to great lengths to show application. 

Every 22 minutes the sun goes supernova. You can track its stage with a quick glance. 

Quantum objects disappear when you aren't looking at them, posing numerous challenges.

The mysteries of the local solar system lay tantalizing before you, and equipped with only your wits and whatever tools you start with you must unravel them, something that never fails to feel satisfying and important.

Shortly after you begin the game events unfold which result in your character being stuck in a timeloop. The other characters, unaware of this, offer little insight on the matter. You are left to go into space (and the unknown) on your own. This is the genius and terror of the game.

While you are not technically alone you are in a very emotional sense. Everyone dies at the end of the 22 minute cycle only to be dragged back into existence without any knowledge of their demise (if you try to tell them they simply question your sanity). Only you remember.

Only you remember. This becomes your greatest asset and motivation. Knowledge is the games motivating factor. Whenever you find a new journal or text from an ancient alien civilization a giddy feeling comes over you. What will you learn? What questions will it answer and how can you use this new knowledge? It is the only thing you can carry from session to session, and your character keeps track of it in the ships log for you. 

Knowledge as a motivating factor is a delightful feat for any game to achieve, but here it is the ways, once again, in which you can apply the knowledge that shows mastery of game design. So many mysteries and challenges seem daunting and undefeatable when you first encounter them. Perhaps even frightening. But, the more you learn the more capable you become. By the end of the game the knowledge you have gained and secrets you uncover seem worthy of a resume. Secrets I can't mention here without the risk of spoiling them.

In this regard The Outer Wilds is akin to the great adventure games of old, like Myst or King's Quest, but easily surpasses them in function. The open world (open solar system) of the game is traversable in its entirety, with no bars on how you can explore (or die). Another fact that leads me to the title of this post.

This game challenged me deeply. Not because of the mechanics (Exploring can require skill). I found exploring the depths of a gas-giant, sneaking past galactic horrors, accidentally steering into the sun, and maneuvering near a black hole to be entirely humbling and terrifying experiences. I haven't found a game that has challenged on grounds of interactivity in a long while. Something that I was so loath to play (I DID NOT want to go to Dark Bramble, and you will discover why), and yet so compelled to.

The Outer Wilds moved me deeply. As a game that explores themes of legacy and memory, change, sad farewells and hopeful beginnings I take my hat off to all involved. This is a terrifying, beautiful, and monumental adventure in both form and narrative.