We recently posted an article praising the unconventional strength of relationships in the blockbuster hit, Heavy Rain (check it out here). How bizarre does that now seem, given that in a shocking and honest interview with Quantic Dream founder and lead director, David Cage, details have emerged suggesting that the entire creative team behind the blockbuster hit Heavy Rain were ultimately disappointed with its final outcome. When asked about what he felt the game succeeded with and failed at, he answered:
“Well, there were different things. With the team, we were pretty much unhappy with everything. We thought we could have done a better job in all areas, and have better rendering, and better visuals, and better gameplay, and better everything.”
This comes as a surprise to many within the gaming industry, particularly in spite of the fact Quantic Dream’s recent tech demo ‘Kara‘ (which was created using the same engine as Heavy Rain a year ago) has been hotly debated as showing great signs of promise for the developers future.
Cage, previously of Omrikon and Fahrenheit fame, continued to say that despite impressive feedback and sales figures, the game was never given a chance by certain audiences:
“We wanted a better blend of storytelling and interactivity. We thought that sometimes in Heavy Rain there were moments where the balance wasn’t exactly right. We are working on new ways of merging this in a more natural and fluid way.
There were so many things, after Heavy Rain, that we learned. We felt on a marketing point of view, I would say that some people maybe didn’t giveHeavy Rain a chance, just because they felt it wasn’t a game for them. Maybe some people thought it was just a game where you would just press buttons, and some kind of interactive movie thing, which Heavy Rain absolutely was not.
We felt we lost some people because we couldn’t convince them to give the game a chance. So, this is also something we took into account in trying to convince more people that they should give the game a chance.”
What do you think? Was Heavy Rain one of the better games you’ve played recently? Was it a step in the wrong direction for gaming? Check out the full interview here and let us know below.
