Detroit: Become Human Reviews
With Detroit: Become Human, Quantic Dream delivers us without a doubt its most successful title.
Review in French | Read full review
Detroit: Become Human wants to move you. It wants to elicit an emotional response through its story. The thing is, it really doesn't. The flowchart is a nice inclusion and adds some variance, but when the narrative is as cringey and ham-fisted as it is you won't want to play through it multiple times.
Developer Quantic Dream continues to solidify their pedigree in creating narrative driven cinematic experiences. Aside from a few story and design stumbles, Detroit: Become Human offers an engaging adventure with great presentation, meaningful choices, and plenty of replay value.
Like all of Quantic's games, Detroit is a big, stupid swing for the fences, yet another attempt to get Cage's dream of "playable movies" off the ground. Skeptics of the studio's previous games won't be convinced, but there are plenty of small improvements that make it Quantic's best offering to date
Detroit: Become Human is a poignantly pulpy interactive sci-fi drama where your choices can impact events to a greater and more satisfying degree than in most games of this type. Though I wish its story had been handled with a softer touch, especially considering the subtlety that can be conveyed through its tech and performances, its well-written and acted central trio were vital enough to me that I found myself feeling genuine distress when they were in danger and a sense of victory when they triumphed. Most importantly, Detroit offers a multitude of transparent branching paths that entice further playthroughs, and choices have a permanence that raise the stakes throughout.
I am still working to unlock floating branches on this Yggdrasil of a story tree, so I'm almost certain there are dark corners of this world that will give me more of what I'm looking for. The concept of self-aware robotic people has been explored for decades, and Detroit: Become Human makes sure you have plenty of reasons to explore it for at least more than a few hours. After all, the story, much like Chloe, shows plenty of life.
What makes Detroit: Become Human a great game, though, is that even after going back through alternate narrative branches and winding down my play time, I'm still invested. The world that Quantic Dream gave me to explore is only a short leap from the one we're living in now, and the ideas presented have left me contemplating the role AI could play in our lives sooner rather than later.
Detroit: Become Human is a great prediction of our nearest future, where rise of the unemployment among humans will be caused by an ever-increasing automation. But most importantly, it's an emotional story about the cruelty of our world, about fighting for freedom — and a price you have to pay to gain it. And the best Quantic Dream game to date.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Try it if you really want to see how hard it is to make branching narrative work on this scale. Otherwise, just catch up on Westworld.
Detroit: Become Human may not be perfect, but it's Quantic Dream's masterpiece.
Some games allow us to escape reality, and some force us to take a long hard look at it. Detroit: Become Human is one of those games that straddles the border between entertainment and reality.
Detroit: Become Human really is like sitting down and playing a TV box set. It's a technical masterpiece on PS4 with movie quality sound, lighting and camera work, which is backed up by some top quality action and a wonderfully evocative score. Detroit really worked for me; I was gripped by the story and connected with the characters, but I think some players may have a hard time relating to Kara, Markus, and Connor. That's to be expected. After all, we're only human.
Detroit: Become Human has a thrilling story experience, and figuring out what choices make the plot that's right for you is most of the fun. However, some annoying control mechanics crossed with awkward camera functionality, and performance issues stop Detroit: Become Human from reaching greatness.
Detroit: Become Human is vintage Quantic Dream, delivering a multifaceted choose-your-own-adventure that's both ambitious and somewhat of an acquired taste.
Racism and slavery is bad, folks. You can probably figure that out without playing Detroit, and if you can’t then David Cage’s writing isn’t going to change your backwards thinking in any way.
The problem is our robot horse needs QTEs as well to get going and without enough blue blood, bled by actual gamers, it's a hard task and road to Maple Syrup ahead.
Detroit Become Human is a game so ambitious, that it can be considered brave to put the player in deeply emotional situations. It's not forgiving, and the coices are so many that you won't be free from sacrifice and pain. In a modern scene full of multiplayer stuff, going back to narrative is something we can't appreciate.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Detroit: Become Human is best when it foresees the consequences of our decisions and sets up a clear choice — or a muddy choice. It creates the illusion of the Butterfly Effect, where small actions can lead to big consequences.
In any case, I don't know why exactly Quantic Dream finally made a game I loved (as in, why it took them so long), but as a fan of Until Dawn and The Walking Dead, I'm glad I can actually add a third game to my favorites for this genre. Maybe it's because all of the characters are supposed to be robots so you're force-fed story and juxtaposition through analysis, making it easy from a writing perspective.
Quantic Dreams and David Cage brings us into the future where androids walk alongside humans. And everything depends on the choices you make.
Review in Slovak | Read full review