Heavy Rain a Retrospective
About 5 years ago I pitched an article about a Heavy Rain retrospective, it was meant to be a humorous look at the way that Cage and his team manage to take really cool ideas and mess them up completely while simultaneously opening a gateway to ‘new’ ways of playing games in the mainstream. However, in the light of the controversy [1] that has surrounded Quantic Dream I am glad I never wrote it exactly like that.
So, after, revisiting it, and probably iterating on the same article countless times. The piece is more why I think Heavy Rain was important for the games industry; and why it no longer should be.
At the same time I’ve tried to break it up into a formula that I find familiar.
Note: I am very appreciative of the time and feedback that Brad from gamecritics dedicated to this piece, and I think it is much stronger as a result. I would also like to thank both Shaun CG and MattH for their feedback on the piece. Also, for context, this was written in 2018 and a lot has changed in the political landscape since then.
The Hype
I still remember the initial screens for Heavy Rain in 2007. I was working in a QA department and the entire office was buzzing about the tech involved. The visuals were breath-taking, lifelike, and very different from the standard characters in mainstream games. Sony, through Quantic Dreams, seemed to have something special on their hands. It just wasn’t clear what it was, exactly. At the time all I knew was that it was a follow up to Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy but it was intended to be more ambitious, and was based on the scared robot teaser that had been released previously that had the whole office rabidly enthusiastic.
David Cage, the game’s director, released press statements describing it as a noir title in which choices mattered, characters could die, and the story would adapt accordingly. Words were thrown around like “emotive”, “stirring”, “boundary breaking” and “never before seen”.
The hype escalated as the game’s release neared, and the previews at the time continued to intimate that this would be something we hadn’t played before. The story was to revolve around 4 characters: a grief-stricken father, an intrepid reporter, an ageing private investigator, and a drug-addicted FBI agent. Each of their story arcs interwoven and linked to a serial killer.
The game came out to mixed reviews. Among the praise for the brave direction and the exploration of what it was like to be a father, there was talk of artificiality of the choices and the scripted nature of scenarios. Some were negative about the action sequences because they were just a series of Quick Time Events. There were also criticisms regarding the storytelling — the ham-fisted dialogue and voice acting being the most cited.
Regardless of those flaws, the game went on to sell over 4 million copies and has led to Quantic Dreams building two more games Beyond: Two Souls starring Elliot Page and Willem Dafoe, and the recent Detroit: Become Human.
On the one hand
Heavy Rain may be clumsy but there were a lot of things it got right.
The way Heavy Rain sets its tone is perfect. The player follows a man as he gets out of bed, has breakfast, and then plays with his sons. This doesn’t seem like much, but having the player negotiate a daily routine at a sedate pace while thinking about coffee was revelatory in the console space considering that its contemporaries asked the player to rip off an opponent’s limb and beat them with it. Certainly, other portions of the game are more explosive, but those moments are more impactful due to the contrast of the quieter scenes and they affected the players. There is a short write up from Julian Murdoch on ‘Gamers with Jobs’ where he writes about the impact on him[2] as a father, way before Daddification in games was a thing:
“Heavy Rain is, ultimately, about this: testing the resolve of parentage. That makes it a difficult game to play, as a parent, as many pundits and reviewers have pointed out. But it is an important game nonetheless.”
Cage’s opus is at its best when it examines the little moments. My favourite revolves around FBI agent Carter when he is tasked with solving a murder.
Carter examines the latest crime scene in pouring rain and must climb up a slight incline to gather evidence. The player, as Carter, must press and hold a number of buttons to get him up the slippery, muddy hillock, in an effort to make sure that Carter does not fall on his arse. The balance between serious investigation and comical meandering is perfect. The game asks you not just to identify with the characters in their times of peril, but also to understand them in their moments of mundanity, and there really wasn’t anything else like it available on the big black boxes in front of the television.
Heavy Rain changed perceptions of what mainstream games could be to players, and its sales conveyed to publishers that you didn’t need to be shooting things every few seconds to engage users and to hit big numbers. Telltale cited Heavy Rain as the inspiration for their new control system in Jurassic Park[3], which later went on to influence the huge indie hit The Walking Dead. Heavy Rain itself was clearly inspired by other point and click adventure games, but it was the title that dragged this type of storytelling into the mainstream on consoles. It was Elvis stealing Rock and Roll, or The Sugarhill Gang bringing Rapper’s Delight to the mainstream charts through sheer weight of investment from the audience.
At the same time, Heavy Rain gave PS3-era Sony a personality that suggested they were taking a more developer-focused direction. Indie support was lacking on PS3, but by the time I was doing the rounds at conventions and the PS4 and Xbox One were on the horizon, it was clear that Sony were courting developers and simplifying certification to make it easier for titles to get out on their new platform. This support may have waivered in recent years, but the #4thegamers ethos Sony had going on in early release definitely helped.
Heavy Rain also ushered in a period where games weren’t just ‘adult’ — a popular selling point of the PSX and PS2 was that they now had gore, violence and swearing — they were exploring mature themes and motives outside of ‘this man has a neck as thick as most people’s torsos and you can see every vein pop on it as he gets very angry’.
I was chastised by my editor for making bold claims in my original version of this article — but it is hard to see console games maturing without Heavy Rain as a footnote in their history. It even has a chapter in 1001 games you must play before you die[4].
… On the other hand
While Sony chose Cage as one of its champions, there were warning signs in Heavy Rain, and also in its precursors Omikron: Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy that perhaps his attitudes towards certain things were, to put it politely, messed up.
Heavy Rain’s attitude towards its women, and its portrayal of people of colour[5], sent alarm bells off for a lot of writers (most notably Austin Walker currently working at Waypoint). Fahrenheit reduced the black character to a guy that danced and had sex all the time, women in both Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit both had lingering, uncomfortable shower scenes, the video I linked above has an embarrassingly racist stereotype of a black man that is featured as a major story beat in Heavy Rain. All these things should have added up to something, but there was this feeling that what was happening was important in terms of narrative, so white men such as myself were willing to shrug it off, as part of doing business and pushing boundaries.
Then Beyond Two Souls came out and it suffered from similar problems. The game nailed some moments, such as the scene where the main character goes to a party as an awkward teen and the environment and denouement is perfect. However, its larger themes of intrigue and supernatural, the fractured timeline that jumps back and forth with no obvious through-thread, is just a mess. It has an awful, insensitive section with Navajo characters, and there was the controversy of the fact that the main character was modeled on a real person, actor Elliot Page, and had been modeled fully with anatomy (nipples) that were never meant to be seen. Hackers revealed this later, providing nude mods, and Page almost sued as a result.
Before Detroit came out it was revealed[6] that David Cage and his company were responsible for creating a toxic environment wherein sexist and racist remarks were frequent. Cage’s response to these criticisms is spectacularly telling[7]:
“You want to talk about homophobia?” said Cage to Le Monde[8] (translation via Eurogamer[9]). “I work with Ellen Page, who fights for LGBT rights. You want to talk about racism? I work with Jesse Williams, who fights for civil rights in the USA… Judge me by my work.”
It is so tone deaf it feels like we are back in the 80s. The thing is, at this point people like me were judging him based on his work… And it was lacking.
Now Detroit is out and there are choice paragraphs being written, doing just as he requested:
“There’s an incessant, bubbling fear that the one with a controller in their hands will either be thick as shit or too shallow to comprehend the astute correlation made by the developer between the real-life oppression of a people and the persecuted robots in this video game.”
Videogamer[10]
“There are other problems, too. Cage still can’t seem to write a single fucking game without tying up his female lead and stripping her of agency for a quick, cheap thrill, and it’s hard for me to judge how people from actual minority groups will feel about the way the game so frequently co-opts the imagery and iconography of disenfranchised people to tell its story”
AVClub[11]
“Adding to unoriginality of the main plot and are some eye-rolling tropes, with forced references to race and class inserted for dramatic effect. Androids, for example, have to sit at the back of a bus. And one-story strand pulls up disturbing parallels with history that many will find unnecessarily distressing. At one point, I genuinely encountered the line, “But who’s the real monster here?””
The Guardian[12]
“But Cage doesn’t have the wit or the intellect to write machines as machines; he can’t imagine intelligences that are different to human beings or that want different things.”
Eurogamer[13]
“Instead of attempting to explore the history of how robotics and automation are wielded as weapons against labour, how they are a symptom, rather than a root cause of out-of-control profit motives and worker disempowerment, we instead must suffer through paper-thin allusions to America’s civil rights struggle: robots on the back of the bus, belligerent masters yelling at chastised servants, and unceasing references to slavery. Instead of a real discussion about power hierarchies, we’re served milquetoast Martin Luther King Jr. quotes and Instagram-ready parables about equality and freedom.”
Vice[14]
Note, this is still from largely positive reviews, the most notable exception being Vice, whose review/critique was delayed behind the other, more positive reviews.
What are my thoughts on the game itself? I have not and will not play it.
For the exact reasons that Heavy Rain had the impact it did, I am not willing to give Quantic Dreams more money so that they can continue to make content in an environment that reproduces the very worst of the games industry — and that is a work space that is hostile to all but those willing to put up with a toxic environment.
Keza Macdonald, recently wrote about the why the #Metoo movement had not happened[15] in the games industry because it remains one dominated by men, the previous scandals in the industry were met with ‘fans’ dogpiling on victims. The industry is not ready because the support systems that women and minorities need to be able to talk about these issues is non-existent, and the purveyors of the content are likely to side with corporations and aggressors.
The slack we give auteurs is nothing new, Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock are both examples of belligerent directors that were forgiven because they produced art. Each art form has a whole closet of abusive, nasty, awful people that the public just lets them do whatever they want (the recent interview with the Arrested Development[16] showed Jason Bateman at his worst — defending Jeffrey Tambor’s terrible behaviour).
David Cage does not stand alongside these people in terms of vision, and even if he did, it still wouldn’t be worth what is happening inside Quantic Dreams’s studio.
Conclusion
This is a cultural problem that extends beyond the game industry. However, the fact that the institutions within games — that should be seen to make a difference — continue to only superficially care is a major problem.
During the filming of The Shining, Kubrick abused and cajoled Shelly Duvall, demeaning her acting talent, making her redo scenes over and over again and pushing her to the point where she considered quitting acting forever. This bullying produced a film that is remembered to this day but also a golden raspberry award for Duvall. She quit acting completely in 2002, and has remained in obscurity since, while suffering from all kinds of psychological problems. Kubrick is dead, but his legacy as one of the greats is intact.
Did her treatment on the set of The Shining ruin Duvall forever, and did Kubrick sacrifice her for his legacy? Everything points to yes.
From a different perspective, Birth of a Nation, is regularly brought up as a groundbreaking film by DW Griffith. Released in 1915, it portrays a group of heroic KKK members rescuing a group of white women from Black men at one point, with African Americans largely unintelligent and primal. It was the first film to be aired in the White House, and is credited with the rebirth of the KKK. DW Griffith in response to the criticism from NAACP made Intolerance as a way of thumbing his nose at his critics, and mirroring a modern day anti-SJW, and Cage’s own response to criticism. One section of Intolerance deliberately portrays the struggle of capitalists and workers seeking better rights as damaging the common American, both sides are just as bad as each other[17]:
“The American “Modern” story (c. 1914) demonstrates how crime, moral puritanism, and conflicts between ruthless capitalists and striking workers help ruin the lives of marginalized Americans.”
DW Griffith essentially played the victim while being the director of the highest grossing movie of the previous year.
When I originally pitched this story for Heavy Rain it was to talk about the game being hugely influential to mainstream gaming, despite it being a bad game. Instead the real story is that we should be in the process of burying Heavy Rain for the legacy of distress that Quantic Dreams has inflicted on its staff and people associated with his product.
I do not wish to imply that Cage is Kubrick in terms of talent, nor do I want to say that Heavy Rain is Birth of a Nation in terms of controversy. However, in both examples, I think there are lessons to be learned. Kubrick needs a far darker shadow cast over his legacy, the normalisation of stereotypes in Birth of a Nation should be said loudly within the same breath as any praise for its technical prowess, and said without remorse, or regret.
Arguing that a back catalogue of work justifies, or obscures, a person’s behaviour can be countered with the following argument — imagine all the talented men and women who were suppressed by an awful one. Imagine how an industry that condones this behaviour, or encourages uncritical acceptance of harmful stereotypes, can hold a great deal of incredibly talented people back. Worse, drive them away entirely.
The casualties are not, and never will be, worth it. As a result, I am personally unwilling to give Quantic Dreams money, nor am I willing, after this article, to give them anymore air.
Sources:
1. Polygon — Workplace harassment charges jolt Quantic Dream, maker of Detroit: Become Human — Owen S Good published Jan 14th 2018, updated Jan 15th
2. Gamers With Jobs — Node — Heavy Rain — Julian “rabbit” Murdoch published March 4, 2010
3. Destructoid — Telltale’s Jurassic Park Inspired by Heavy Rain — Jim Sterling published 2011–01–10
4. 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die — General Editor Tony Mott published Oct 2010
5. YouTube — Gaming Since Gaming video on ‘Mad Jack’ from Heavy Rain — published Jan 6, 2013
6. Polygon — Workplace harassment charges jolt Quantic Dream, maker of Detroit: Become Human — Owen S Good published Jan 14th 2018, updated Jan 15th
7. PlayStation Life Style — David Cage’s Response to Quantic Dream Mistreatment Allegations is Embarrassing — Tyler Treese published January 14, 2018
8. Le Monde — article has been removed
9. Eurogamer — David Cage and Quantic Dream “shocked” by allegations of unhealthy studio culture — Robert Purchese published on Jan 14th, updated on the 15th and 22nd 2018
10. Videogamer — Detroit: Become Human Review — Colm Ahern published 24 May 2018
11. AVClub — Detroit: Become Human is beautiful, welcoming, and lackin a soul of its own — William Hughes published 5/24/18
12. Guardian — Detroit: Become Human review — meticulous multiverse of interactive fiction — Oliver Holmes
13. Eurogamer — Detroit: Become Human review — clumsy yet effective robot-rights thriller — Oli Welsh published 24 May 2018
14. Vice — ‘Detroit’ Siphons and Squanders a History of Marginalized Struggle — Yussef Cole published June 6, 2018
15. Guardian — The video games industry isn’t yet ready for its #MeToo moment — Keza MacDonald published 24 Jan 2018
16. NYTimes — ‘Arrested Development’: We Sat Down With the Cast. It Got Raw. — Sopan Deb published May 23, 2018
17. Wikipedia — Intolerance reference page
This article was updated to reflect Elliot Page’s new name
