Detroit Become Human Review

Game: Detroit Become Human

Developer: Quantic Dream

Genre: Action-Adventure/Multi-Ending/Story Rich 

Release Date: May 25th 2018

Completed: First Time End Credits- September, 2026

Connor Title Panel. Source.

Overall Impression

This game starts before players even hit “new story”. The Chloe android in the menu creates the setting immediately on launch. This is directly followed by an extremely engaging and stressful tutorial that was one of the hardest launch into a story game I’ve probably ever experienced. This game captivated me in ways I didn’t expect. Although riddled with plot holes, the 3 converging story lines are so engaging, coupled with deeply thorough world building which makes for an extremely captivating gaming and narrative experience. 

Gameplay Mechanics & Performance

I played this game on “story mode” because sometimes I panic during QTEs and I wanted to experience the narratives in full. Even on “story mode”, the QTEs are still very engaging and require players to pay attention, which I appreciate. However, the camera in this game is pretty horrible. The navigation feels janky and I even got soft-locked in Club Eden (see screenshot below, had to restart the chapter). Moreover, snow/rain still can’t render and some larger crowds didn’t really feel rendered either. 

I appreciate the clarity of the interaction design in this game. It is obvious where you can interact, and where you can’t. The hidden stuff doesn’t super need a guide to be found. The rest of Detroit’s performance is great, engaging and definitely warrants multiple playthroughs.

The corner of Club Eden I was soft locked into (my own screenshot from Steam)

Story and Characters

Detroit features a well thought-out setting with a strong attention to detail and care. Elements like magazines and news reports contribute to strong world building. The inclusion of millennial birth years appearing in android scans for most human characters amplifies the game’s narrative for its targeted audience while simultaneously enhancing its not-so-distant setting.

Detroit’s narrative is powerful. Despite its fictional elements, it draws very real parallels to human life and history. Detroit’s narrative features themes of segregation, technological progress and the moral panic that is guaranteed to be coupled with it, perseverance and what it means to be human. For me, there are several parallels to real life tragedies and atrocities like the holocaust, especially for Kara’s bad endings in the android camps. It was painful to watch those scenes.

I'm used to picking chaotic choices because the chaos alignment in my beloved Atlus games are more engaging to me. So I ended up being very violent in my first full playthrough to end credits. The story is mostly super well rounded in the ways in which the 3 stories overlap, particularly for Connor and Markus. However, as mentioned, I did notice a good chunk of plot holes in the story/setting.

Plot holes I notice:

• Markus is able to awaken androids from afar. Why didn't he just do this all the time, and why don’t other people in Jericho harness this ability (I guess they always move as a unit). Moreover, why can’t he create some kind of “network blast” in order to convert all androids immediately?

• Why are the androids only given human strength and stats? The androids are basically humans who don't get out of breath, can calculate accurately 100% of the time and can probably have even more [perfect] memory ability installed. Truly just a slightly more efficient human. 

• If the androids are built in units with the exact same likeness, how did the border guards not have a list of all android likenesses? Is Kara’s haircut really enough to obscure her android identity?

Of course, I dismiss these plotholes in favour of the campiness and commitment of the game’s message of new age “humanity”. It does piss me off that Markus and Connor essentially lead revolutions in contrast to Kara’s character who is just pursuing family and motherhood. It feels very sexist; it can also be argued that androids didn’t even need a gender expression to begin with. I appreciate the moments of whimsy, love, trust and family she shares with Luther and Alice, especially in the way these moments disrupt the dread of the larger plot, but I can’t help but feel a great disparity between the weight of Kara’s story versus Connor and Markus. 

I hated Connor and Hank in my first playthrough because I don't like the police, but then after learning the internet is obsessed with them, after two credits, me and my audience (my discord lol) decided to pursue the endings we could get by making Connor and Hank a strong team. Connor’s unique position of completely switching sides in combination with his awakening being last, makes me understand why he is the internet favourite. I preferred Markus because he really built his journey from literal ashes like a phoenix. Somewhat unrelated, but another character I enjoyed despite her lack of screen time is Lucy. She has a really cool oracle design and her limited dialogue enhances the weight of what she has to share with the other characters.

Graphics and Sound

I don’t have a lot to comment on in terms of graphics to this game, as it's a classic triple A style rendering to me. That being said, I thought the deviant (Persona lol) awakenings had a cool design. The design elements and UI of this game are user-friendly, straight forward, and fairly utilitarian. 

Despite my somewhat disdain for the triple A game art style, I was very impressed to learn about the actors' experience for motion capture. It must have been very challenging to act in such emotionally weighted scenes in an empty room.

Proximity ambient noise and sound design coupled with narratively timed dramatic orchestral music made for an excellent sound experience in Detroit. The syncing of music and decision making/QTE is very well paced. A couple of songs felt cool, but I don’t have a strong opinion on the music otherwise, it served its purpose well in this game.

Comparisons, Final Thoughts, Conclusions

I especially enjoyed this game because I was always streaming it with people I care about, which almost always enhances a rich story for me in almost any form of media. Similarly, I appreciate how the devs included the world stats on the story chart to mirror the message of shared humanity, which is a big theme of the game. This also made me feel othered as some of the violent choices I made in the first pass were chosen by less than 5% of players 😭.

Of course I feel obliged to mention the obvious timely parallel between Detroit and our current reality of the AI boom of today. AI is scary, and to me, has absolutely no place or belonging at all in the arts :-) 

Overall Arbitrary Rating: 8/10 spoopies