Heavy Rain: David Cage Interview

Quantic Dream founder spills beans on QTEs, Project Natal versus PS3 motion control, "primitive" emotions in gaming and a private tête-a-tête with Hideo Kojima.

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Kikizo: Can you tell me a bit about Quantic Dream as a company - where it came from, where it is right now, where it's going? How has it grown to facilitate this project?

Cage: So Quantic Dream is a really old company - we're 12 years old now - and we are about 100 people internally. For Heavy Rain there are about 100 people outside the company. And we have our own sound studio in-house, we have our own 3D scanner, we have our own motion capture set - that was an investment we made about 10 years ago, because we wanted to master this technology. And that's pretty much it. We believe in emotion above all, this is really what we believe in. We believe games can become - should become - a creative medium, and not just stories for kids. So we try to create more sophisticated experiences for an older audience.

Kikizo: Have you had a chance to look at Project Natal and Sony's new motion-sensing wand? I was quite convinced by Natal.

Cage: You know, it's one idea among others. I'm not sure all people want to play jumping and running in front of the television, because I think some people just want to relax and just play, enjoy and experience. It shows Microsoft wants to go the Nintendo way, probably, go casual, compete with Wii Fit, and there's nothing wrong about it - there is a market for casual gamers. But this is definitely not the direction I would like this industry to go, because I think it should go in the direction of movies - more creativity, more new ideas, more authors - rather than going in the direction of toys. And from a technical point of view I must admit I'm still slightly sceptical about what they've shown.

Kikizo: So what are you thoughts on the new PS3 controller, then?

Cage: I think it's an interesting time for PlayStation and Sony, I think they revealed some very interesting new titles that start really to show what next-gen means. And when you look at titles like Uncharted 2 or God of War III, Heavy Rain and others, you start to see that we're really moving to the next stage. There are some very interesting new games coming along.

Kikizo: OK. And Heavy Rain is coming out next year?

Cage: Early next year.

Kikizo: What are your remaining priorities as you finish the game?

Cage: Well we're just past the alpha stage, and basically our priority right now until the game is released is just to polish everything. And it's a game requiring a lot of details to be checked, and everything should be in place otherwise it's going to distract the player from the experience itself. So we work very hard tuning the gameplay, improving the directing, improving the visuals, making it just look and play the best we can.

Kikizo: We're looking forward to seeing more. Thanks for your time, David.

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