One of the most talked-about trailers from Sony's Paris Games Week press conference was the latest for Detroit: Become Human, the upcoming narrative-driven title from Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream. The video gave viewers an uncomfortable and unflinching look at domestic violence, as a male character named Todd attacks his young daughter depending on the decisions the player's character, a female android Kara, makes.
We got to take an extended look at the scene in our playthrough at Paris Games Week, and we found it to be just as uncomfortable in our second viewing, though that isn't necessarily a criticism. In the above video, GameSpot's Lucy James and Tamoor Hussain discuss their thoughts on the demo and how this contentious scene could add or detract from the story Quantic Dream is trying to tell.
"The whole point of the story is androids trying to gain some sort of humanity and become their own people, almost. And you do that by experiencing these powerful emotions, and one of those powerful emotions is empathy and dread and horror and feeling powerless," Tamoor said. "So in that respect it did it's job and it did it well. I felt angry, I felt sad, I felt bad for the kid, and I hated Todd in that moment."
Detroit: Become Human launches for PlayStation 4 in Spring 2018. We got to play through another scene from the game at Paris Games Week as well, this one involving a tense hostage situation. We also got to speak with the game's director, David Cage, on why he chose to show the domestic violence scene.
