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5 CommentsThe artistry of game making explored at Tribeca Film Festival
By Alexa Ray Corriea on Apr 29, 2013 04.29.13
For 35 minutes the audience sits transfixed, silent, through every clip of dialogue and every moment a button command prompt appears alongside the action. They are watching footage from developer Quantic Dream's video game, Beyond: Two Souls. Earlier in the week, Tribeca hosted a panel featuring a developer from studio Naughty Dog, where panelists discussed evolving technology and cinematic techniques and how it affects film and game development. Topics ranged from the benefits and drawbacks of implementing new gadgetry to the importance of sweeping, cinematic scenes. Developer Josh Scherr discussed Naughty Dog's upcoming The Last of Us, and how cinematic techniques influenced its development. The Tribeca Film Festival is an annual New York City event that aims to bring the film...
News
25 CommentsBeyond: Two Souls will be 10 hours in length
By Emily Gera on Apr 29, 2013 04.29.13
Beyond: Two Souls, the upcoming narrative-driven title from Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream, will feature 10 hours worth of gameplay, this according to studio head David Cage during an event at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. This is comparable to the studio's previous narrative-heavy titles, with Heavy Rain requiring roughly eight-to-12 hours to complete and Indigo Prophecy clocking in at roughly eight hours on average. During the event, as reported by GameSpot, Cage also revealed that the percentage of players who have finish Heavy Rain has grown to 75 percent, an additional one percent since 2011. According to Cage, typically only 20 percent of gamers will complete a game in its entirety, adding that the higher completion rate of Heavy Rain is due to its reliance on...
Culture
26 CommentsSony sends out mock 2,000 page Beyond: Two Souls script
By Dave Tach on Apr 23, 2013 04.23.13
The script for Quantic Dreams' Beyond: Two Souls would take up 2,000 printed pages, which Sony illustrated recently when it sent out mockup copies of the game's script. Check out the picture above to see a picture of the faux script that CNET writer Dan Ackerman posted on Facebook. "Yesterday was Earth Day, today Sony sends over 2000 blank pages to show off how big the script for Beyond: Two Souls is," Ackerman wrote. "And, all the pages have been hole-punched, so you can't just re-use them in a printer. That said, David Cage is still The Man." For more on Beyond: Two Souls, you can check out our impressions from E3 last year, our interview with mastermind David Cage from DICE 2013 and some gameplay footage released last month.
News
6 CommentsQuantic Dream hopes to reach larger audience with PS4 touchpad
By Tracey Lien on Apr 22, 2013 04.22.13
New interfaces like the PlayStation 4 controller's touchpad could allow developers like Quantic Dream to reach larger audiences, according to the studio's chief operating officer Guillaume de Fondaumiere in an interview with Eurogamer. Speaking at the Digital Dragons Conference in Poland this past weekend, Fondaumiere told Eurogamer that the studio is always thinking about a console's controller because it enables players to interact with a huge variety of styles of games. "In the past, we've made several propositions to Sony, who is the console manufacturer, to make sure that the controller is not a barrier to the experience for certain people who are not used to this controller," he said. "We see today the emergence of new interfaces such as the touchpad and you've seen that, for...
News
10 CommentsQuantic Dream head discusses Japanese games and his take on the PS4
By Kevin Gifford on Apr 17, 2013 04.17.13
Have you ever wanted to ask Quantic Dream founder and CEO David Cage — a man who's certainly known for his deep and heavily character-driven games — what he thinks about the Japanese game scene? Famitsu magazine had that opportunity this week, and the answer may surprise you, given the tendency many designers have had in recent years to downplay Japan's achievements. "I've loved Japan's games for a long time, and I've always been playing them," he said. "My personal impression is that Japanese games have high creativity and really cut through the mold. Really, Western games have a tendency to just repeat the same things over and over again and be hesitant to change. I really think Japan's creators are the ones making more ambitious challenges with their work." Given what titles...
News
7 CommentsBeyond: Two Souls influenced in part by the homeless, creative director says
By Megan Farokhmanesh on Apr 03, 2013 04.03.13
Heavy Rain creator Quantic Dream's upcoming game, Beyond: Two Souls, was inspired in its narrative by creative director David Cage's experience with the homeless, according to a recent CVG interview. Beyond's main character, Jodie, is followed by an invisible, spiritual being. Cage says that he took inspiration from mentally ill homeless people, who sometimes speak to "invisible friends." "If you see [homeless people] in the streets, and if they are not fit mentally, some of them will be speaking to an invisible friend — and they can sometimes be very angry and very upset with that invisible friend," Cage said. "One of the starting points of Beyond was me thinking about what it would be like if one of those imagined friends actually existed." According to Cage, the concept of...
News
7 CommentsBeyond: Two Souls to appear at Tribeca Film Festival as an 'official selection'
By Michael McWhertor on Mar 21, 2013 03.21.13
Quantic Dream's PlayStation 3 adventure Beyond: Two Souls will make an appearance at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, Sony Computer Entertainment announced today. Beyond: Two Souls is an "Official Selection" by the annual festival, which the PlayStation Blog calls "the first such selection of this kind for a video game" despite Rockstar Games' L.A. Noire being recognized as an official selection in 2011. The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002. A one-hour scene from Beyond: Two Souls will be screened on April 27 alongside a "major trailer" and a "Tribeca Talks" panel featuring actor Ellen Page and director David Cage. The event will be livestreamed on the PlayStation Blog. Beyond: Two Souls will be released on PS3 on Oct. 8.
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34 CommentsBeyond: Two Souls skirts the uncanny valley, says David Cage
By Samit Sarkar on Mar 21, 2013 03.21.13
Beyond: Two Souls developer Quantic Dream prides itself on the game's visual fidelity, and studio head David Cage said in an interview with The Verge that the quality of the graphics and animation will only help to tell Beyond's grand story. Beyond will depend on lifelike animation provided by Quantic Dream's performance capture technology and photorealistic graphics from the studio's artists to properly deliver the performances of the characters in the story. That includes well-known actors such as Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, and while Quantic Dream's process captures their facial movement and body language, other animations aren't always up to par. "Is everything absolutely perfect and exactly like reality? Certainly not," Cage told The Verge. "But we worked very hard on making...
News
58 CommentsPlayStation Plus will have a 'prominent role' on PS4, says Sony
By Samit Sarkar on Mar 01, 2013 03.01.13
The PlayStation Plus subscription service will have "a prominent role" on PlayStation 4, said Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, in an interview with the PlayStation Blog. Sony did not highlight PlayStation Plus during its PS4 reveal event last week, but according to Ryan, that doesn't mean it's not going to be a part of the PS4. Calling the Plus service "a core part of the way forward," Ryan said, "We're not yet in a position to disclose our plans for the future of PlayStation Plus but there will definitely be a prominent role to play for it in the PlayStation 4 landscape." Ryan also pointed out that Plus membership has tripled over the past year. Sony doesn't plan to leave the PlayStation 3 behind, either. PlayStation 2 production ceased at the end...
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14 CommentsDavid Cage on what lies beyond Beyond: Two Souls for Quantic Dream
By Michael McWhertor on Feb 12, 2013 02.12.13
Quantic Dream's next PlayStation 3 game, Beyond: Two Souls, will be "quite different" from the studio's last, Heavy Rain, says founder and game director David Cage. And Cage's next project, whatever may come after Beyond, will also be "very different," he says. "I make games because I want to discover. So [with] each game, I take risks," Cage told Polygon in an interview at last week's DICE Summit. "It would have been a very easy decision for me to make Heavy Rain 2; same game, different story, different characters and here you go. It probably would have sold more copies then than Heavy Rain, but I'm in this industry because I'm passionate and fascinated by it ... I just want to experiment. "So expect something quite different with Beyond ... and after Beyond." Beyond: Two Souls...
