Heavy Rain (possibly subtitled The Origami Killer) is an upcoming video game, developed by French studio Quantic Dream for the PlayStation 3. The game is being directed by Quantic Dream's founder and CEO David Cage, who also wrote and directed the studio's two previous games, Omikron: The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit. The game is scheduled to be released in 2009. The game was announced at E3 2006, where a tech demo entitled The Casting was presented to the media and general public.
History and background
Quantic Dream started working on Heavy Rain in February 2006. The project was announced on May 7, 2006, and three days later, a real-time 3D prototype technology demo was presented at E3 2006 on Sony Computer Entertainment of America's booth. The demo, titled The Casting features a virtual actor, while showing various technical features of the game engine in an almost five minutes long emotional scene, although the story and setting of the demo has nothing to do with the story of Heavy Rain itself. The prototype was allegedly created in less than three months, including writing the script, developing the engine for the console, making auditions to find the virtual actress, recording the scenes, etc. The demo was initially supposed to be an internal prototype, not to be shown outside the company, but after Sony saw the team's work-in-progress a few weeks before E3, they've been asked to finish up a working demo to be presented to the audience, while the team had originally planned to finalize the before the end of June.
Details
Details about the story and gameplay of Heavy Rain itself remain scarce. It is known that the game is not a sequel to Fahrenheit, but a completely new game, with new story and new characters. Director David Cage noted that Heavy Rain "will be a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes", without any supernatural elements. The game will feature a story that is interactively "bendable", similarly to Fahrenheit. It's been told by the creators, that "the character control mechanism is an essential part in playing Heavy Rain", and is different from the system used in Fahrenheit. The player will be able to control different characters in the game. In a recent interview given by Quantic Dream co-CEO and executive producer Guillaume de Fondaumière to
www.gamedaily.com, characters will be true virtual actors capable of showing highly realistic emotions.
Some game physics will be made available by the use of PhysX by AGEIA. It is used for console physics in general in the game. Originally for the PC, there were going to be two separate versions of the game to handle cases of a computer being equipped with the appropriate physics processing unit, and to handle cases when it is not present on the system. However, now that the game has been announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, it is assumed that that won't be necessary. In the demo, the physics of the hair made use of the AGEIA technology. However, recently in the Dutch Magazine Chief on March 11th, Executive Producer David Cage gave gamers a teaser by announcing a few details about the game. He alludes to one of the main characters being a father trying to justify his actions by saying "Its purely about a father's love." "The main story will revolve around 4 different characters, and we're putting the spotlight on their perceptions. The question 'what is good and what is evil' is the key here, that will be just a matter of viewpoint...I believe heavily in moral choices, I'm going to use them A LOT. They're not about being good or bad, but about finding the right balance." On the setting, David Cage responded by saying, "I don't want to do a big free-roaming city like GTA, because the flow of the story will then be hard to control. Nevertheless, I do want to incorporate big sets, with a crowd, heavy populated areas like a mall and a subway are going to be in there. Of course, the gameplay has got to make use of that aspect too."
The Origami Killer poster
Some time in early 2007, a poster of Heavy Rain appeared on Quantic Dream's under-construction website. It features an origami model with blood dripping from one of its corners, and a new subtitle to Heavy Rain, reading The Origami Killer. Also notable is a list of (presumably virtual) actors (Ethan Mars, Scott Shelby, Madison Paige, Norman Jayden), and a tagline: "How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?". A small image of the poster can be seen on the updated website, under "Game Studios", "Heavy Rain". Just above the words "Heavy Rain", writing can be seen.
The Casting technology demo
Mary Smith
The Casting, shown at E3 2006, is an almost five minutes long non-playable real-time 3D prototype technology demo. It was running on a non-final PlayStation 3 console development kit in 720p display resolution. The demo's main feature is the presentation of a virtual actor (hence the other name "Virtual Actor Demo"), showing numerous expressions. It also shows various technical features of the game engine, all embedded in a short emotional story. However, the plot of the tech demo has nothing to do with the story of Heavy Rain itself. The story was written and directed by David Cage.
The virtual actor in the demo is based on young French American actress Aurélie Brancilhon. Not only her likeness was used in the prototype, but her complete acting performance.
Quantic Dream highlighted, that the technology demo is just a sample of things achievable in a limited amount of time, and that during the making of the prototype, they still were in the middle of research and development efforts.
Plot of the demo
In the demo a young woman comes into a white room. Her name is Mary Smith, aged 24, and she has come to audition for a part in an upcoming film titled Heavy Rain. Asked about her acting background, she admits that she has only had minor parts because she is often seen as unfit for major roles: "Too tall, too short, wrong hair… There's always something wrong with me!" The male speaker (now known to be the director) asks if she has her lines down, to which she says yes. A male assistant raises the clapperboard for Heavy Rain to start filming Mary's audition.
When he lowers it again, the set has changed entirely to a small kitchen in which Mary begins a monologue. She talks to the camera and addresses it as being the character of her husband, with whom she once had an ideal, romantic marriage. However, she started to notice little things about him that were indicators that he was cheating on her. One time after he left his office, she followed him to be sure, and watched in shock as he stopped at a seedy hotel to meet with another woman. Crushed and heartbroken, Mary explains how she went home and cried in sorrow as she stands dejectedly over the kitchen sink, lightning bursting outside the window. Reaching into the sink, she monologues how she took their gun from the bedside table; on the set, she produces a revolver from inside the sink. Holding the gun to her head and shedding a tear, she says that life is cruel to make her cope with such horror - but she has a change of heart, as she wasn't the one who was cheating. She sits back in her chair, saying how she waited patiently for her husband to come home. When he got there, she merely stood up and took aim in his direction (and has just stood and aimed at the camera). She playfully acknowledges that her husband likely believes she doesn't have the courage to pull the trigger, but her mind has been made up; she wants to make an example of him, and show that women refuse to tolerate such behavior. With a final goodbye, she pulls the trigger, accompanied by another great flash of lightning.
Suddenly, the viewer sees once again the demo where Mary stands back in the empty white set, holding her fingers in the shape of a gun. She smiles and asks how her performance was, happy that she has a chance. Upon Mary's exit, the male assistant expresses his interest in her acting abilities to the director; in a bit of irony, the director says that there was no point in auditioning her, as she is too tall for the role.
Technology
From a technical and technological standpoint, notable features of The Casting include full body and facial motion capture, real-time tears and wrinkles on the face, advanced skin shades, and some advanced rendering features, such as depth of field, spherical harmonics, auto exposure and high dynamic range rendering. The technology enables animations of pupil dilation, tongue, eyes, fingers, and dynamic hair with physics. The game engine also supports real-time post-processing, with which E3 attendees could interact at the event. Hair physics is achieved by the use of PhysX by Ageia. Facial motion capture was recorded using Vicon Peak MX40 cameras and system, and was enhanced with a muscle system.
