Heavy Rain was a surprising hit considering the unorthodox way of approaching gameplay almost entirely through QTEs. Developer Quantum Dreams’ boss David Cage claims to Gamasutra he was never pressured into developing Heavy Rain 2 by Sony despite selling very well and sings high praises about their “total freedom” policy of exploring new ideas.
“Many publishers, after the success of Heavy Rain, would have said, ‘Well, you need to do Heavy Rain 2. And do what you want, but it’s going to be called Heavy Rain 2.’ And we never had this conversation with Sony. They just asked me, ‘What’s next? What do you want to do?’ ‘Well, I have this idea, what do you think?’ ‘Yeah. It looks great!’”
David Cage’s next project, Beyond: Two Souls, was announced at E3 this year and created quite a buzz by pushing technology boundaries already thought established this console generation.
The game builds on the quick time event model used in Heavy Rain an dQuantum Dream’s previous generation cult hit Indigo Prophecy, and tell a chilling story of what happens after death. The latest technology allows the game to feature a perfectly rendered model of Hollywood actress Ellen Paige through motion capture, starring her as a traumatized telekinetic being chased by a government agency.
Cage claims that this game could only be made with the total freedom Sony allows independent game companies.
“It’s really a story that I needed to tell, and Sony gave me the opportunity to do it. Which is quite unique. It’s really incredible in this industry to have the possibility to work like that. Usually, you make indie development, and you have limited resources, but you have freedom, or you work on a triple-A and you have the resources, but limited or no creative freedom. And I’m in the strange position where I have both.”
Cage also believes this model opens the doors for a lot of talented game developers who want to think outside the box of established conventions, but don’t have the resouces available to them.
“I think it’s our responsibility in the games industry to make sure that creative people have a space where they can have these ideas. It’s interesting to see indie developers these days, because I think there’s a lot of creativity with indie developers because they have this space of freedom where they can try new ideas, and I think they are the future of the industry.”
