Lazy Review: Detroit Become Human

One of my friends always had this to say whenever we talked about David Cage’s games: “His games always start out strong, but as you keep playing, you’ll realize that everything starts to fall apart”. While I was a bit skeptical of what he said, it wasn’t until I played Detroit Become Human, that I finally started to understand what he was talking about.

Detroit Become Human is a PS4 exclusive title developed by Quantic Dream that tells the tale of 3 different androids as they embark on a journey of self-discovery, all while living in a futuristic world on the brink of chaos. It strives to tell an ambitious narrative, one that allows players to decide how they want the story to unfold via choices they have to make. Kind of like the choose your own adventure playbooks we had as a kid, only this time there’s a lot more money thrown into it.

To be honest, I’ve never been really that interested in David Cage’s games. My biggest reasoning has always been that his games feel less like games, and more like boring interactive tech demos. Seriously, just look at some of the gameplay and you’ll see what I mean. However, with his latest entry being a story about androids, I couldn’t help but feel a little intrigued. So, after having played through Detroit Become Human, all I can say is that it was…a rather interesting experience.

You can definitely tell that a lot of hard work and care was put into building the graphics, the soundtrack, and the environments. Everything looks very bright and lively, and the amount of detail is just impeccable. However, all of those only make a very small portion of a game, and unfortunately, I can’t say sing the same praises for its story and characters. Now don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of things that I liked, and also a lot of things that I despised with the story and characters.

Let’s go one by one shall we?

Disclaimer: Light spoilers ahead

Connor

My name is Connor, I’m the Android sent by CyberLife

By far the best and most thrilling tale that Detroit Become Human has to offer. The story tells about Connor working with the authorities (in this case, another cop) in order to uncover the source of deviancy within the androids (basically androids that gained free will) and quell civil unrest. His story is one that really explored the themes of what it means to be an android very well. The choices I had to make throughout his story really had me questioning what kind of character I wanted Connor to become; as both sides had heavy consequences that rarely left the world in a better state.

Bryan Dechart does an excellent job portraying Connor as a morally-confused Android. One that is trying to come into terms with what he wants to do vs what people expect of him. However, I’m not sure if I can give that credit to David Cage since Bryan’s lines were mostly improvised. It’s unfortunate that in my playthrough, Connor had died prematurely as a result of my decisions, and that left me feeling really bitter. Though I guess that’s how David Cage wants us to experience his games, more on that later.

Kara

Maybe we can be friends again?

This story was one that had a lot of potential. But it fell short due to a really dumb plot twist that shouldn’t have happened. Kara’s story is about her leaving her master in order to protect a young girl, and their journey find freedom and live a happy, normal life. Her story for me is the most relatable one out of the three. It told a more personal tale that focused solely on the mother-daughter relationship between Kara and the young girl and their personal struggles to find a better life. Kara herself is a character that resembles a human the most in my opinion, and it was hard to believe that she was still an android. It’s a story that tries to tug at the hearts of its players. And it would’ve almost succeeded…if it wasn’t for that DUMB PLOT TWI- Ok I’ll stop now.

The only other problem I have with Kara’s storyline was how easy it is to win over people’s trust. The options you have are very black and white, and there are rarely any noteworthy consequences for being nice. This probably isn’t a bad thing for most people, but for me, it made the story a bit too predictable. Other than that however, her story is still one that was very enjoyable.

Markus

This is a night our people will remember

Markus’s story felt the most disconnected to me, as it seemed less about trying to tell a compelling tale, and more about trying to shove a misguided message down your throat. Markus is an android that, after having been left to rot, rises up and becomes the leader of an Android civil rights movement looking to start a revolution. His story was really less about the exploration of its characters and more about the larger story that encompasses all 3 narratives. Markus feels less like a character, and more like a vehicle to push an idea that is both stupid and incredibly flawed (more on that later). It’s a shame because you can tell that the actor portraying Markus is trying his absolute best to bring Markus to life. And those moments do show on occasion, but there just wasn’t enough of it.

Most of my bigger problems with Markus story relate to the overall story of Detroit Become Human as a whole. So that’s what I’ll be talking about next.

Story

Although this is my first time with a David Cage game, it is not my first time with branching narrative games. I’ve had other experiences such as Uchikoshi’s Zero Escape series. So with that in mind, while I appreciate the amount of effort it took to create such an expansive story; I do think that it’s fair to knock it a few pegs down if I feel that it could’ve been done better. What I mean by that is that some of the paths that the game has are of significantly less quality than that of the others. For example, it’s entirely possible for you to prematurely kill off all three of your protagonists, and have the story end on a bad note. Now bad endings aren’t anything new, however the way Detroit Become Human handles it makes it feel its making fun of you.

This is because, at the end of each chapter, the game shows a big flowchart of all the possible story events that could’ve occurred. This feature overall is actually pretty good I’m not gonna lie since it allows you to see many different outcomes the story could have. You even get to see what choices others have picked. Too bad it really sucks when you realize that you are one of the 3% of people that managed to screw things up and end up missing a lot of content that you could’ve gotten. But hey maybe I’m just bad at this.

There are also some major problems with how the story presents its historical themes and allegories, but I don’t want to get into it here. Instead, I’ll link you to an awesome video explaining this much better than I ever could. I highly recommend you watch it.

“Gameplay”

If you’ve played any previous David Cage games, there’s really nothing new I can add that you already don’t know. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, David Cage games are basically just a series of quick time events and literally nothing else. I will admit, however, that the investigation sections worked pretty well with this style of gameplay. They do some pretty cool things that help show the uniqueness and originality of their world. However, it’s still at its core, just a glorified interactive button prompt simulator.

This is how David Cage likes to think how interactive games work. But people who have played his games over the years know that that is far from the case. It gets tiresome and it gets old pretty fast. It’s especially egregious when you want to replay the game to see all the possible different endings, but then realize that in order to do that, you’ll have to sit through more boring non-interactive gameplay. But hey, if that sounds appealing to you, be my guest. I am an advocator of trying something for yourself as opposed to just listening to the words of the internet.

What I can recommend however is that if you want to see all the different endings, it’ll be much faster to do a quick search through Youtube than to sit through up to 10 hours more of this boring slog.

Conclusion

There were many things I enjoyed, but also many things that I hated, and I’m honestly conflicted as to what I truly think of this game. Detroit Become Human certainly had a very interesting premise, as well as gorgeous graphics, backgrounds and likable characters. But the story and gameplay, for the most part, left much to be desired. For the most part, I agree with what my friend has to say about him. However, while I can’t give David Cage much credit for his ability to write well-written stories, I can at least say that he…tried his very best. Maybe one day we’ll get to see something great from him. But given his track record and what the internet thinks of him, that probably won’t happen for a very long time.

One thing that I know however is that this will probably be the only David Cage game that I will ever play. Since I heard that despite its flaws, Detroit Become Human is still the best game he has made up to now. So I really don’t feel a huge desire to play his other games. Maybe I’ll watch a playthrough of them someday, who knows.

Oh please

Anyways this has been my review of Detroit Become Human. What did you guys think about Detroit Become Human? I’d love to know, maybe you’ll be able to show me a new perspective. I’m all ears. As always thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all next time!