Heavy Rain Shown at Leipzig [UPDATE] Now With Trailer

by Patrick Steen on August 20, 2008 at 8:45 am

David Cage of Quantic Dreams discusses Heavy Rain in front of an eager audience at this years Leipzig Games Convention, just as we predicted. A gameplay trailer, all real-time, is shown at Sony’s conference and as soon as we get our hands on it, we’ll share it with you.

Cage develops the idea that the game will be heavily story driven, where each of your decisions will have a consequence. IGN, who are live blogging Sony’s press conference, states that Heavy Rain “will be mature/serious content. It’s going to be accessible. It’s going to be an emotional experience.” And it certainly impressed the audience:

Everything is real-time 3D, and it’s exclusive on the PS3. I’m extremely excited about this one. The audience applauds happily — seems like we’re all pleased.

Heavy Rain will release in 2009.

[UPDATE] - Our friends over at Gamersyde have uploaded an offscreen recording of the new Heavy Rain trailer here, or you can watch it in the comfort of Ripten.

[UPDATE 2] - IGN have just posted an eyes-on preview of Heavy Rain, which details how the player actually interacts with the game and their impressions of what was shown. You can find it after this link.

[UPDATE 3] - The full press release has been released:

PLAYSTATION 3 exclusive from Quantic Dream unveiled – a dark, emotional thriller where decisions can have dramatic consequences

Heavy Rain is the place where action gaming meets film-noir head-on, in an adventure unlike any other. A game where your mind, emotions and human nature will be put to the test like never before, Heavy Rain takes interactive entertainment down a dark, compelling path rarely ventured in the gaming world.

Founded in 1997 by David Cage, French developer Quantic Dream has achieved international renown for its innovation within the games industry, particularly in the areas of interactive narration and emotional content. The studio’s record speaks for itself: in particular Quantic Dream was responsible for 2005’s award winning Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy in the US and Canada), a paranormal, interactive blend of film and gaming that was widely praised for re-imagining the adventure game genre.

One of the highlights in David Reeves, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), introductory speech, Heavy Rain was unveiled at Games Convention 2008, taking brave new steps in the games industry in both content – an adult thriller with a complex plot – and gameplay – where you play and shape the storyline rather than be a mere spectator. Step into a world of mystery and suspense, betrayal and redemption, in Heavy Rain™, a PLAYSTATION®3 exclusive from Quantic Dream scheduled for release by SCEE in late 2009.

Heavy Rain is a dark, immersive and emotionally-engaging experience; one that expands upon the innovative ideas of 2005’s acclaimed Fahrenheit to create a noir-thriller where decisions are charged with importance and actions can have drastic and unforseen consequences. Breaking with traditional game conventions where necessary, the gameplay will be based around story, emotional involvement and the player’s decisions and interactions, rather than high-scores, combat and competition. Intuitive gameplay and controls are also fundamental to the experience – ensuring that the game is mature but accessible, and avoiding alienating players with obscure stats and complex interfaces.

In Heavy Rain you don’t watch the story – you play it. The dynamic narrative unfolds through the players actions - not cut scenes - and every action has a consequence. The choices you make and the way you interact with other characters have repercussions throughout the storyline. With unprecedented responsibility over the fates of the game’s characters, players will find Heavy Rain an emotional experience unlike any other. It dares to tackle subject matter and themes rarely touched upon in video games, making it a genuinely mature game for a new world of adult gamers.

Heavy Rain has been unveiled at Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig with a teaser trailer consisting of actual gameplay footage, demonstrating Quantic Dream’s use of stunning animation and motion-capture technology to create an atmospheric and thrilling experience.

Heavy Rain Image Gallery

11 Photos

Source: IGN

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Tags: heavy rain, Leipzig, Playstation 3, quantic dreams, Sony, videogaming

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Comments »

xenovis
on August 20, 2008 10:01 am

Is it just me or did the entire gameplay appear to be timed events? Basically it looked like a CG Dragons Lair/Space Ace, which could have been done on the CDi.
Dan Landis
on August 20, 2008 11:42 am

Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. Is this just an adventure game full of QTE’s, because that’s basically all it showed. Maybe it’s not supposed to be a game, but an “interactive movie”… which gives merit to the Dragon’s Lair argument.
Patrick Steen
on August 20, 2008 11:51 am

All I can say is play Fahrenheit. As I’ve always said Heavy Rain involves three pillars of gameplay:

Interactive movie - involving button presses - where you won’t fail or “die” if you miss a press, but a different outcome to the events will happen.
Dilaogue puzzles
Adventure Gameplay.

Quantic Dreams are extending on what they’ve developed before. And xenovis it’s not a pre-rendered movie, it’s real-time rendered and should display impressive facial animation/graphics. It’s not all from this view, or QTE events. You control the character(s), where she moves and what she does - so really everything that happens is upto you.
Dan Landis
on August 20, 2008 5:05 pm

I’ve played Indigo Prophecy, and you’re saying this is the same style as that? Most of the “gameplay” involved walking around and looking for clues until you trigger the next QTE sequence. So then Heavy Rain IS supposed to be an interactive movie, because that’s what Indigo Prophecy was.
Patrick Steen
on August 21, 2008 2:20 am

Well I’d say it’s along those lines. And it’s not quite an interactive movie. Now we have more information on the gameplay, I suggest reading IGN’s preview.
Dan Landis
on August 21, 2008 6:46 am

Okay, so I read IGN’s preview, and now it sounds even more like Indigo Prophecy. So, yeah — interactive movie. Accept it!
Patrick Steen
on August 21, 2008 7:19 am

You don’t get to control a character in an interactive movie. In this game you can go whether you like and do whatever you like, with every object being interactive.

In an interactive movie there are set videos where you make one decision to start another pre-recorded video to play. Here you control the character and take her where you want to.
Dan Landis
on August 21, 2008 7:55 am

So are you saying that David Cage and Quantic Dream don’t know how do describe their own game? You brought up Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit) in the first place, so you should know that they themselves labeled it an “interactive film” and not an adventure game, and Heavy Rain is supposed to be very similar.
Patrick Steen
on August 21, 2008 4:09 pm

No. My reference to Farhenheit is to merely suggest “what to expect”, but their goals and methods have certainly changed since then. Heavy Rain has always been described as an adventure game with interactive movie elements. David Cage has described Heavy Rain on a number of occassions, but gameplay is not something he’s really drawn on.

What we can say is this. How do you define an “interactive movie”? I define an interactive movie as a series of prerecorded videos, where their order is triggered by player decisions.

Heavy Rain differs in this respect since their are no prerecorded movies, you get to control the character; where she moves, what she interacts with. Some of these decisions will trigger QTE sequences - sequences where button presses will only change the outcome of the plot, not create failure for the player - hence removing the common frustration found with random QTE. Even if your character dies, the story will continue without them (this is what I gather from previews.)

Heavy Rain certainly has interactive movie elements, but it would be wrong to define it as such.

edit: Just to explain. What we see in the trailer with the icons coming up is not really QTE as such. In that action scene (which isn’t like the rest of the game where you control the characters movements and interact with NPC’s and solve puzzles etc.) you can look to things in the room to interact with. Ie. you can look to the lamp to wack that over the guys head, or look to the phone to call the police, or look to the stairs to try and run for it. etc.

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